They sometime ask ridiculous questions... something along the lines of "which smiling baby your favorite?" So, when they give me correct results about my personality, I'm always astounded. It's almost magical, really.
Today, I found out that my dominant intelligence is verbal-linguistic (I'm using "found out" loosely here. I think we were all well aware.). My favorite part of the description was this:
You always notice grammatical mistakes when reading or writing something, and tend to think of appropriate solutions. You most likely have (or want) and book collection, and maybe even a collection of quotes and sayings that you remembered over the years.If you don't understand why that's funny, then we'll just assume you have a different dominant intelligence.
But I came across a question that I had a hard time answering. I didn't have a hard time knowing which answer I was drawn to, but I had a hard time actually clicking the submit button on that one.
It wasn't because I doubted one bit what the most important thing was to me in the list, but it was because I was well aware of the hypocrisy in my life that would probably keep others from knowing the most important thing.
And I wondered... what matters more? Whether I believe something or whether I act a certain way? Which one says more about who I am?
I'll be the first one to insist that these are not mutually exclusive ideas. In fact, I have a hard time even using my words to describe the complexity of how they are intertwined, so this post is bound to be simplistic, but it is also not a full exposition of the topic.
But the question here asked me, "What's most important to you?"
I clicked "relationships" immediately. But then I hesitated when I saw "solving problems" because I'm one of those annoying people that can solve everyone's problems (and I'm pretty good at it, too). My first instinct is to solve problems. I'm a guy that way.... seriously, I took tests about it in a Communications class in college. The results told me that I have a masculine brain.
But one of the biggest things I wrote about in the reflective essay that I turned in with that class was that it bothered me to be an instant problem solver. Because while some people (mostly men) lean towards problem solving, nearly all people prefer a listener who is focused on empathizing with a person. (Hey... these are studies; I just couldn't find them on google. But for real, I'm not making this up.)
Yet, here I am... almost 20 years later... still wrestling with being an instant problem solver instead of a natural relationship-focused empathizer. So, I wondered... does this mean that problem solving is in fact the most important thing to me?
I clicked submit on the relationship answer.
The thing is that sometimes, we can get caught up in reflexes and thoughtless actions and assume that this says more about who we are than our intentional thought. There is a widely-held belief that if you put someone in a stressful situation, you will see who they really are.
Mmmmm... I wholeheartedly disagree. You will certainly see how well they handle stress, which is telling in it's own way. But are we really wanting to corner people into their first, thoughtless response?
Are we really wanting to decide that things we haven't yet perfected -- by the course of human history, it's safe to say we will never perfect -- shows the most true version of us?
