The Joys and Pains of Self-Evaluations

We've all done a personality test of some sort; 'which superhero are you?' 'what type of pie best represents you?' 'If you were a car, you would be a what?'. Sure, they're funny and for a brief moment we might wonder what our life would have been like if we actually were Ross or Rachel from Friends. But for every goofy personality test, there are the more serious ones; the ones psychologists and scientists put together through data collection, analysis and accepted hypotheses.

They aren't necessarily fun. They allow you to reflect better on who you are as a person, why you might not feel like you fit in with the general populace. For some, they are epiphanies; 'Oh, that totally explains why I like spontaneous acts of expression and shutting myself out from the rest of the world'. I've done a few of them in my time but I'm at an age of 'tell me something I don't know'.

First, disclaimer; According the Mayers-Briggs Personality profile, I'm an INFP. You can be one of 16 different letter combinations and for most people (like myself) I don't really investigate many of the other combinations because, well, they're not me. I did the MP test in my first year of college, in  a room full of budding accountants. I was the round hole trying to fit into the square peg in that class, which made complete sense at the time.

I did it again twenty years later thinking I've had a lot of experiences since my first year of college. I've loved and lost, hired and fired, tried and failed, tried and succeeded. I've met hundreds of new people so all of that experience must have changed me somewhat right?

Nope, still an INFP.

I means introverted, I feel better by myself than with a crowd.
N means iNtuitive, which means I mostly go with my gut instinct as opposed to rational deductions.
F means Feeling, which means I am guided by my principles; if I agree with it, I'll do it.
P means Perceiving; I'm an idealist, I believe the best in everyone.

By no means is that a complete definition; for we are all only parts of a whole. But those are some of the basic ingredients which make up myself.

Now, I just did another test; the via assessment test, which is also free to do online. It measures those characteristics/values which dominate your personality; there's around 24 of them - too many to list.

I value honesty above all else. I also enjoy humour, creative thinking, and learning new things.

Sounds great, right? Nothing too surprising there. But when it came to my weakest strengths, you know what lays at the bottom of this idealistic soul?

Hope and gratitude.

That's a pretty big kick in the nuts and hard to rationalize with my strengths. How can I appreciate honesty yet have so little hope? How is I love to learn new things but have so little gratitude to the world I'm learning about?

So that's what I'm dealing with today; all because I took an assessment which tells me what science has determined by a series of 120 questions what I truly think of myself.

Does my humour come from my sense of hopelessness?