Be it Myers-Briggs, or the Enneagram, or one of those “Which Harry Potter Character Are You” Facebook Quizzes – I love personalities tests. In a broad sense, I enjoy recognizing patterns in society and gaining knowledge to better understand and categorize the people around me. But on a personal level, I just love to self-asses myself, grasp a deeper understanding of my unique combination of traits, what my default reactions are, and how best to improve myself. I knew this about myself for years, but it’s all the more reassuring when every professional test I’ve taken in the last 10 months has reinforced this.

I’m an INFJ-T (Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, Judging, Turbulent) in the Myers-Briggs and a hardcore 4 leaning 5 in the Enneagram – a special little snowflake, one of the rarest types in the world, and proud of it! Highly emotional, empathetic, and striving for constant improvement. Creative, Loyal, Insightful, Perfectionistic, Private, and easily burnt out if I don’t have a cause – that’s me in a nutshell.

As a kind of anti-social person, I really gel with the idea of getting a snapshot of a person’s personality through these kinds of categorizations. Of course, it all comes with a grain of salt, and relationships are endlessly complex, but knowing more about myself and my own pitfalls has really bridged the gap between friends and colleagues over the last year. It’s also a pretty easy conversation starter (unless the person completely tunes you out). The concept certainly resonates harder with some folks than others, but that’s just more evidence that these types really do exist in the world – and understanding the underlying thought processes of the people around us can make conflict all the easier to avoid.

The fear, then, is over simplifying each type or diagnosing people prematurely. Holding biases against certain types and even discriminating people out of certain jobs because of their personality type is taking things way too far. These labels are only the building blocks – even surface layer to what makes a person unique, and while it can be helpful to categorize people, it can be just as harmful as a tool to judge people. I don’t know where you fall, dear reader, but I hope that through these lenses we can come to a greater shared understanding and promote a better world.

On that note, Sundays will now be my day off from the blog to focus on my own self-improvement through my personal favorite personality test site – 16personalities.com. Almost a year ago, I payed to gain access to a more deeply tailored curriculum for my type: The Advocate. I made some stunning revelations in that time, but have totally neglected it for the past half-a-year or more. Plus my subscription is gonna be renewed at the end of March, and I’d like to get my money’s worth!