Inward, Outward

I've done the Myers-Briggs personality test many times before this year but always found myself puzzled by the results.  This year, I was "forced" to take it twice as part of intern orientation and was surprised at the results.  I am technically an "INTP" for anyone familiar with the classification system, which in a nutshell indicates:

INTPs are pensive, analytical folks. They may venture so deeply into thought as to seem detached, and often actually are oblivious to the world around them.

Precise about their descriptions, INTPs will often correct others (or be sorely tempted to) if the shade of meaning is a bit off. While annoying to the less concise, this fine discrimination ability gives INTPs so inclined a natural advantage as, for example, grammarians and linguists.

INTPs are relatively easy-going and amenable to almost anything until their principles are violated, about which they may become outspoken and inflexible. They prefer to return, however, to a reserved albeit benign ambiance, not wishing to make spectacles of themselves.

http://typelogic.com/intp.html

This seemed accurate, and as I've been mulling these classifications over in the past month or so, I think I've come to learn more about myself.

For one, I appear to be "driven by internal stimuli".  As sketchy as the wording may sound, it is true.  I chew things over, processing them slowly, often taking time to form an opinion that I then hold very strongly to.  I am introspective (no surprise there to those who read my blogs), sometimes to the point of paralysis and mutism.  One of my favorite quotes as a young teenager was, "A belief is something you hold; a conviction is something that holds you," and ever since reading it I tried to live according to conviction.  Sometimes this makes me appear stubborn or inflexible, but what I am learning is that the best way to change my mind is to convince me that "it is the right thing to do."  There.  I just gave away my secret to beating me in an argument.

For another, I am driven by a "sense of possibilities".  A side effect of this is that I procrastinate, which should come as no surprise to those who know me well.  But what that really means is that I think in terms of what could be, in terms of abstract potential.  A visionary or dreamer, I suppose.  Some may laugh a little, for I have developed a reputation for being cynical and dark.  But as I am also fond of saying, "Cynics are the only true idealists, because they are the only ones who have an ideal that the real world falls short of."  I like to think of what I could do, the things I could learn, the kind of person I could be, rather than what I am doing now.  Perhaps that is why I prefer to shop by impulse rather than planning, or why I love to start projects but have difficulty completing them.

Why am I rambling about this?  Because it helps explain to me why I do what I do, so that when I am faced with hard decisions and difficult times, I will remember what are the important things that drive me.  I will remember to "see myself" in the Pauline words of Scripture, looking both inward and outward, to the present and the future:

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead. - Philippians 3