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LRA1 Semester 2

I took the Myers-Briggs test once again, just to see if my evaluation would end up being the same. It turns out that one semester later I am still very much ENFJ type: extroverted, intuitive, feeling, and judging. The description of the “Teacher” type is of course something that I can definitely relate to—in about the same way I can relate to an astrology description of my sign. The ambiguity in applying it to me is what bothers me. I will not deny the fact that I have characteristics of the ENFJ type. The acronym itself is all words that I would use to describe myself in some way. And the “teacher” is described as a natural leader, in that they easily assume this position and it’s hardly noticed that they are in this position. I would say in many ways that can be true for me. I’d also like to flatter myself into thinking that I am also extremely “charismatic” and I rally people into action. Though I do hold people accountable to a very high standard, I hardly feel that I have an attitude sensitive enough to allow people to easily reach their potential without feeling pressured or like they are letting me down. It is also flattering to read that as a teacher I can effortlessly create activities and situations for people to become involved in. While I believe that is true of me, I don’t know if this is necessarily an objective reflection of who I am. I answered this test in response to how I felt about myself. Naturally the results will seem agreeable since I manipulated it from the onset.

In particular analysis of the acronym and my percentages respectively (44%, 50%, 50%, 33%), the new results differ from my original test. I would agree that yes, I am an extroverted individual and learner. I am happy to involve myself in social situations, easily share my opinions, and I become bored very easily. I do not, however, prefer group working situations. In a more introverted sort of way, I like working alone, but it’s so I can have complete control over my situation. This allows me to avoid compromises that I think will really hurt the final result or perhaps my vision. However, I do easily compromise because I recognize the importance of sharing, bouncing ideas off of each other, etcetera, etcetera. I am also very much an intuitive thinker, even though I do very well on objective tests. As an intuitive thinker, I prefer to make my own interpretations on assignments. I hate the idea that I may be doing something clearly and non-negotiably wrong, or not doing what I can for a project. My intuitiveness finds comfort in the fact that I can’t really mess up on open-ended questions and responses—the person that I have to please in the end is really me. My Myers-Briggs test would then like to make me out to be more of a feeler. Yes! I am very emotional and I have a lot of emotions invested in everything that I become involved with. However, I don’t necessarily allow these emotions to make my decisions or even cloud my judgment. Though, morally, the emotions I feel for situations drive me to make decisions based on my sense of justice, critical situations that require objectivity are not that much of a challenge to me. In fact, I would consider myself strongly as a thinker as well as a feeler. As a thinker I am goal and achievement oriented and I prefer to work on my own. Though I am usually pretty confident in the work I produce, I feel that I often need praise and approval for what I have done, thus placing me under the feeling umbrella as well.

And finally, I am glad that my percentage for judging (33%) has been reduced by over 30% from last time. The judging type seems so inflexible to me. Though I could stand to be a little more flexible, I am hardly rigid and one-tracked. I can manage many things at once and above all, I really enjoy novelty!

Reflecting on my writing style, I would really say about the same as I did last semester. I most definitely can identify with the extrovert in me, the intuition driven writing style, and perhaps a nice combination of the feeling and thinking writing style as I do like to combine facts along with my personal values. However, as far as the judging and perception writing style, I fancy myself as more of a perceptive writer where deadlines MOST definitely motivate my completion as I’m writing this the morning it is due, and I use similar examples and paragraphs from previous works to support whatever I’m writing at the present. I hardly limit myself or set outlines or goals for my writing, and my first drafts are lengthy and rambling, and of all the writing styles there are, I most definitely would relate myself with perceiving and extrovert writing styles.

LRA2 Semester 2

Looking over my goals from last semester, it is very clear that I was not preoccupied with trying to know much of anything outside of myself. In most ways I am very much centered on my own personal self-improvement and self-worth, and I don’t often think about that which is beyond me without finishing up the reflection fussing over my needs.

I had one specific goal, “Be open-minded,” which may count in a way to reaching out to something beyond the ego. When you are open-minded, you are willing to except things outside of your formal and personal sets of opinions and conventions. This allows for new thoughts and challenging ideas to be bounced around without restriction. With the capability of hearing out other ideas, the importance of my own personal ideas and thoughts is removed. When my knowledge isn’t the overruling factor in decisions and beliefs, then I have the ability to look beyond myself and my ego. However, I don’t believe that my original intent for being open-minded was about looking beyond myself, even though it is a recognition that I don’t know it all and there is so much more to learn.

Also along the same lines of being open-minded, I had the goal of “Be Open to new knowledge.” Though this carries the same implications as far as looking beyond my ego, in my explanation I insisted that I was not to go out and seek new knowledge. This sort of restricts the ego-ousting quest because I am not actively engaged in improving myself or my knowledge of what’s really beyond me. I am just willing to let it come in if it decides. The passivity of this goal is troublesome, especially when goals are usually agreements to do something consciously and purposefully.

The final goal that I feel may be able to apply is the goal to “get to know people.” This also ties in with being open-minded and be open to new knowledge. This is a more active goal, and implies that I should make every effort to acquaint myself with different individuals. This goal also implies that I shouldn’t seek particular types out—rather, I should be open to anything and anyone. I don’t agree with trying to specifically search for people that I generally wouldn’t relate to. And the general idea of this goal in its relation to reaching out beyond the ego is the realization that I am not the only human being, and every persona equally is concerned with his or her own personal welfare. This detracts from the importance of just one singular person! There are 6 billion people on the planet—how can you believe yourself to be any better, any more deserving, or any more privileged than anybody else. This can put issues of life and problems into an unsettling light. It can either make life seem pointless, worthless, or easily taken for granted, or it could encourage one to go outside oneself and look for a greater power and/or meaning to our overall life. If the importance of one individual isn’t wholly important in the scheme of things, one would wonder, what really is?