Those Personality Test Thingies


Here are some lupines in a nearby forest. This picture has nothing to do with this post, unless you want to get all analytical and find a metaphor in it somehow…

Personality tests. Myers-Briggs is the one that comes to mind, but there are others. They ask you a bunch of questions, and in the end, you are given a summary of what your personality type is. I’ve done them many times, although I do not know why. It’s mindless clicking on buttons when I’m tired, I guess.

Why do I want to know more about myself? That’s another question to which I do not know the answer, especially because I am writing this while sleep deprived. But it is something I ponder. That right there, the pondering, probably says something about my personality type. Analyzing things. Now I’m analyzing why I analyze.

I ran out of lavender oil several days ago, and ever since, my sleep has been messed up. I had a feeling the lavender was helping my sleep for the past year, but I wasn’t sure if it was mere coincidence. Now that I ran out and my sleep is poor, maybe that’s just coincidence, too. I ordered some more lavender oil and will see what happens when I can again put it in the diffuser by my bedside.

Huh. Spell-check doesn’t like the word “diffuser”. Why is that? Is it a new word since the spell check was born?

I’ve long been using lavender oil, since the mid 1990s. At first it was the cheap stuff from the grocery store, which smelled fine. Then a friend introduced me to a multi-level-marketing company that sells an expensive version. Admittedly, the costly one smells great, but in my opinion it is way overpriced. If it is such a great product, why can’t it be sold in a regular health food store? Why must it only be available through representatives of the company, with multiple levels of extra cost added on? It’s good, but not worth paying three to four times the amount of the cheap stuff.

So, the lavender I ordered is a different brand, not from the MLM company.  Let’s see how it does in the diffuser. (Stop that bumpy red underscoring, Spellcheck! Diffuser is a word, and I’m going to force you to accept it by adding it to your electronic dictionary. There.)

Back to our topic: personality tests. All the times I have done them, there have been some questions that I didn’t understand, and so I made a guess as to the answer. Then when I got the test results, I read the descriptions of who “they” think I am and thought, “Hmm, it’s close in some ways, but not quite.”

Then today, after insufficient sleep, I woke up wondering about a post I saw on Instagram last night, which said something like “INFJ: Being everyone’s therapist but needing one yourself.”

I thought, “That’s me.”

I hear many stories and I hold them in my head and my heart. I am honoured to receive them, but too often I end up being the recipient of anger because people start to expect me to be their therapist, and I can’t always be available. I’ve lost too many friends because of that. Then I need more therapy. And I’ve gotten it. And I continue to need it.

The reason I saw that post about being everyone’s therapist was because I used a hashtag of “introvert” on a picture I posted. I got curious and looked up what others have posted about introverts.

And so an article I read this morning about INFJ personality types drove me to do a test once again, on my phone. Why not? It was 6:00 in the morning, I was too tired to get out of bed but knew if I fell asleep, I might not be up in time to get my kids to judo at 11. (Yes, judo on a Tuesday morning. Yes, we are “unschoolers”.)

I did the test and it said I am indeed an INFJ, at least this time. It fluctuates between INFJ and another one or two introvert ones, the combinations of letters escaping me, for I never memorize them. These tests are always done in a flighty moment.

This time, the description fit me like a pair of old Levi’s, worn in and on the verge of tearing at the knees. At last, someone understood me. Someone I don’t know. And it comforted me to know that because someone could write about who I am, surely I must not be the only one like this.

But one pair of old Levi’s can fit someone else. I used to trade clothes with a few of my closest friends back in high school. Now I trade clothes with my older children. But I’m going off on a tangent by saying that, so here is the description. It made me think surely EVERYone must be this way, though, no? Are you? INFJ Personality Type Signs (and, might I add, “Symptoms”)

I better go get my kids up for judo. They’ve been sleeping so peacefully, I was able to write a blog entry here at my computer. Hope you enjoyed my rambling. I probably needed to. It’s been awhile.