Personality Assessment

According to the Myers Briggs, I fit the Idealist Counselor. See Description:

Idealist Portrait of the Counselor (INFJ)
Counselors have an exceptionally strong desire to contribute to the welfare of others, and find great personal fulfillment interacting with people, nurturing their personal development, guiding them to realize their human potential. Although they are happy working at jobs (such as writing) that require solitude and close attention, Counselors do quite well with individuals or groups of people, provided that the personal interactions are not superficial, and that they find some quiet, private time every now and then to recharge their batteries. Counselors are both kind and positive in their handling of others; they are great listeners and seem naturally interested in helping people with their personal problems. Not usually visible leaders, Counselors prefer to work intensely with those close to them, especially on a one-to-one basis, quietly exerting their influence behind the scenes.

Counselors are scarce, little more than one percent of the population, and can be hard to get to know, since they tend not to share their innermost thoughts or their powerful emotional reactions except with their loved ones. They are highly private people, with an unusually rich, complicated inner life. Friends or colleagues who have known them for years may find sides emerging which come as a surprise. Not that Counselors are flighty or scattered; they value their integrity a great deal, but they have mysterious, intricately woven personalities which sometimes puzzle even them.

Counselors tend to work effectively in organizations. They value staff harmony and make every effort to help an organization run smoothly and pleasantly. They understand and use human systems creatively, and are good at consulting and cooperating with others. As employees or employers, Counselors are concerned with people's feelings and are able to act as a barometer of the feelings within the organization.

Blessed with vivid imaginations, Counselors are often seen as the most poetical of all the types, and in fact they use a lot of poetic imagery in their everyday language. Their great talent for language-both written and spoken-is usually directed toward communicating with people in a personalized way. Counselors are highly intuitive and can recognize another's emotions or intentions - good or evil - even before that person is aware of them. Counselors themselves can seldom tell how they came to read others' feelings so keenly. This extreme sensitivity to others could very well be the basis of the Counselor's remarkable ability to experience a whole array of psychic phenomena.

Mohandas Gandhi, Sidney Poitier, Eleanor Roosevelt, Jane Goodall, Emily Bronte, Sir Alec Guiness, Carl Jung, Mary Baker Eddy, Queen Noor are examples of the Counselor Idealist (INFJ).


What do y'all think? I know I have taken this before and gotten the same result, and I think it's overall pretty accurate. I would say that I disagree with the "mysterious" and "highly private" part. I mean, there are certain things that I am more private about that most people might be, but I don't think that I'm particularly hard to know or get to know. Have I ever had a side emerge that surprised any of you? (Maybe that's coming later in life).

I definitely agree with the part about not being a natural leader. I struggled my whole life thinking that it was such a good thing to be a leader, but that's just not where I fit. I do, however, work well if the leadership is a group effort.

I'm wondering, though, if this is how I see myself, thus this is how I portray myself on these sorts of tests, or if others see me this way, as well. ... ???

Oh, if you want to check your own: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

26

I feel like an adult.

Yes, I realize that I probably should have been feeling this way for the last 8 years or so, if we're going strictly by age and law, but it's only recently that I have really felt like an adult.

A few nights ago, I was talking to a friend who was telling me about his dating drama and the partying that goes on in his life. I found myself getting annoyed that he is still doing the things he was talking about because it just seems so much like college life. And it hit me: I am over college life. I think it was harder for me to move on from it because I went straight into graduate school and my expectations were for it to be like college, and it wasn't. So, I joined an a cappella group, and I continued living my college-esque life. Of course, my college life is not akin to many - I never REALLY partied - but I stayed up all hours of the night, I procrastinated, I fell in love with and got my heart broken by cool, good-looking jackasses.

I was unhappy and totally burnt out in school, so I took this year off. I sang with my a cappella group, but increasingly became more annoyed by the lack of organization and planning and the general maturity level of those involved. My job involves playing with kids - not something that really makes one feel grown up. I mean, I go to work in Red Sox Ts, no make-up and my hair in a ponytail, and I play baseball, paint, and watch Little Einsteins. But something about being out of school, stepping back, getting perspective, caring for children and maybe just getting older has made me feel like a (somewhat) responsible adult.

I think as I embark upon this new school year with a new cohort and a new outlook, I might take it in as an adult, rather than as a kid longing for my college days. I think that perhaps that's where all of my frustration and sadness was coming from. I was in an adult's world, surrounded by adults (ones who were older than myself) pretending to be someone that I just wasn't yet, but now I'm there. Now I'm ready.

In my defense, there are studies that say the part of the brain that organizes, prioritizes (i.e., keeps a person from procrastinating), and plans isn't totally developed until 25-26, so maybe my brain just needed to catch up and get with the program. :) This also explains why people who do drugs and drink heavily in college never develop the ability to fully see the consequences of their actions and/or have impulse control or organizational difficulties.

I'll update on whether I still feel like an adult once I'm back in classes, but I am optimistic that I will. Just my saying that word - optimistic - shows how much I have changed. A year ago, I would have said, "I'm afraid I'm becoming an adult." Of course, I'm not giving up my incessant dreaming or my pink kitchen/bedroom. I'll just have to be an adult with a love affair for all things pink, Disney, or related to classic/fairy-tale love stories, which I still completely believe in. :)

Update

So today was my last "Teen Talk" group at the clinic. I don't know if I helped the kids or not. I hope I did. I hope they do well. I don't think six weeks is long enough for a group to be super effective. I'm not at liberty to say any of the other things I'd like to say here, so moving on...

I feel like the biggest bum ever. I slept until 10 this morning, and once my group was over (at 3), I came hope and slept again until 7:30. Who does that? I am sick (again!), so I guess my body is just trying to get better, but now I feel gross from sickness and gross from laziness. Speaking of which, is the saying "Feed a cold, starve a fever?" I'm hoping it's feed a cold, because that's what I've been doing. I find it really hard to follow a strict diet when I'm sick and I want to eat comfort foods. Obviously, I need to work on my will power.

I had an awkward moment with my supervisor the other day. He made a comment about going to a town-hall style meeting with "the other side - you know, the people against Obama's health care, and man they are nuts." I just didn't say anything because it wasn't pertinent to my supervision, and I don't want him to think badly of me, but I find it really annoying and unfortunate that I would be worried about someone thinking badly of me because I'm not on board with Obama's socialism. Of course, then people at home (in Texas) think I am too liberal. In reality, I am just a constitutionalist. I like to think that my political beliefs are based in logic, and I wish more Americans would use some logic when forming their opinions. However, I have the ability to appreciate a person's worth/intelligence despite how I may feel about their political beliefs, and I wish more people extended that sort of acceptance to others. While I'm talking politics, I'm going to take this opportunity to post this special that i really wish everyone would watch: http://www.writeonnevada.com/2009/04/mr-stossel-goes-to-washington.html

I really hope I start feeling better, as I have a lot planned for this weekend. Tomorrow night, I'm (hopefully) going to see Julie and Julia with Shane and his gf - yay third wheel... :/ But it's my belated birthday celebration since Shane and I both love cooking/baking so much. And then on Saturday (again, if I'm better), Mariah is coming down, and I'm going to teach her how to make my chocolate chip cookies because hers aren't turning out like mine despite using the same recipe. We are also going to get Sprinkles since Mariah has never had the gloriousness. (This will clearly be a great day to test my will power). After that we are going to see 500 Days of Summer, which I am also really excited about. My immune system needs to kick it into high gear.

Okay, this blog entry has multiple personalities so I will stop.