my careless contagion

While this blog may be dead, as I lost my biggest drive for writing here last year, there are still things I ponder and wish to share (even if no one reads them). I believe people can change, but our personalities are mostly set by the age of 8 (and perhaps even as early as age 5). I recently retook a personality test I took years ago. I believe I posted the results here, as well. Today, bored out of my gourd, I took it again to see if anything changed. I know my behaviors and much inside changed over the last four years but was curious if there was an effect on personality, as well. The answer is no. My personality remains the same. However, the percentages used to calculate it changed. No, there probably isn't a way to quantify the amount of internal change I experienced in four years. It's up to me to keep track of what God did. As the test results point out, it's important for me to keep striving for improvement. It's eerie how many things the results get right. It...

It's hard to explain what goes on inside our heads. We can talk all day long, but if those we talk to have no experience with the weirdness that's so familiar to us, then it's no use. I have struggled most of my life with what I perceive as normal and my inability to be normal (but I insist normal does not exist). Around the age of 30, I decided it was a fruitless endeavor and nearly impossible to change my core personality or ensconced behaviors.  Years ago, I read a book about the power of being an introvert. It made sense, and it even stated that most people in this world are introverts (about 60 percent), but most will not self-identify as introverts. The trouble with being an introvert is we are often undervalued, especially in American culture, where the extrovert rules. And an introvert in America looks very different from an introvert in, say, the United Kingdom. That's the influence of culture.  Every personality type has things that exhaust and ...