Myers Briggs personality

I took the Myers-Briggs personality test sometime during college. I’m pretty sure everyone took it around that time. I definitely found it interesting – look! That’s me! I’m like that! – but I quickly forgot the details. And by “forgot the details” what I actually mean is that I forgot the four letters that are the point of the whole test, really – the four letters that tell you and other people what personality type you are.

“I’m definitely an E,” I would respond when someone asked, “and maybe an N?” My voice would rise hopefully, as if perhaps the person who had asked could see inside me and determine who I was. “Is N the one that is the opposite of F? or is that J? I’m pretty sure mine ended with P.”

It wasn’t that I didn’t take it seriously: I was 19, I took *everything* seriously. It was just… well… I couldn’t remember those letters because they didn’t make any sense to me. Was I thinking or feeling? Why yes, I was. Judging or perceiving? Also a yes. The only letter I could really hold on to was “E” for “extroverted” and even that one had become almost “I” for “introverted” when a “sensitive” boyfriend had me take the test again years later. He honestly wanted to know the letters I couldn’t recall for the life of me.

No shock that I didn’t stay with that boyfriend: labels and numbers still escape me more often than I would like to admit. My spouse is able to remember not only the actual date we met but also the year. He knows things like the birth weights of both of our children and the names of characters in books he read long ago. I can remember who sat at which table at the wedding where we met, which student wrote what essay 15 years ago, and the names of all of my teachers since kindergarten. He knows his Myers Brigg personality type and he probably knows mine, too. We make a good team, so I fearlessly forgot my letters.

Then, a couple of years ago, a colleague stumbled across a funny little article called “The Definition of Hell for Each Myers Briggs Personality Type” and was quizzing us all as we ate lunch. She read hell after hell out loud as various colleagues shared their “type.” I laughed and played along until the inevitable, “What type are you, Amanda?” I sheepishly admitted that I had no idea. “But it starts with an E!” I chirped.

Then she read this hell: “Somebody is wrong, and they’re directing a large group of people! You can’t do anything about it and will have to obey whatever inefficient policies they decide to implement.”

My horror was physical. A shiver ran from my shoulders all the way down my spine. I shifted uncomfortably. There it was – no questions asked – whatever the letters are that go with that one, they define my personality type because that is absolutely my hell.

And that, friends, is also the moment we are currently living in education as politicians make inefficient policies about education based on… well, I honestly don’t know. Just another set of labels and numbers I appear to have forgotten.

But at least now I know my Myers Briggs type. Well, sort of.