NaBloPoMo, Day 11

One thing that most everyone at Wheaton develops is introspection. Knowing yourself, what you need, is of high importance, it seems, and along with that comes a piqued interest in personality tests. One offered by Career Services is the Gallup test, StrengthsFinder, which asks you something like 177 questions to discover your top five of 34 strengths. It's a lovely confidence booster and a sort of common language. As with most people, I like my strengths. They tell me these things, in this order:

• I am a relator, meaning that I pick a few close friends, but I know them really well. In a large-group situation, I just need a couple people to talk to, rather than wanting to talk to everyone however briefly.
• I individualize people. I don't like labeling people, generalizing, any of that. I'm particularly proud of this one because I think it's one everyone should have to be a decent human being.
• I analyze. I need to be able to prove something if I'm going to believe it and act on it. I have decision trees in my head.
• I'm a developer, so I take people wherever they are and help them improve. I also get excited about improvements, even if they're tiny. 
• I'm an arranger. I put people in groups well, arranging people and schedules for maximum productivity. (I think this might also have something to do with efficiency, which I like a lot.)

As happy as these things make me, my brain's getting a little full of personality stuff right now. Here's why:

• At some point, you have to stop thinking about yourself and what type of person you are and actually do something with your time. 
• Personality tests can sometimes become like a self-fulfilling prophecy: "Well, I'm a developer, so I would typically behave this way, so I guess that's what I should do" or "That's not one of my strengths -- I wouldn't do that, so I shouldn't."
• To some extent, self-discovery should happen by your own self, not by a test.

That being said, these tests give me a lot of insight into people I'm just getting to know. So that's nice.
 
Also, two people I know (kind of) got engaged tonight. I mean, it's cute, but whoa. You're a year older than I am. This is not OK.