Friday, May 21, 2010

If These Walls Could Talk


Idealists are introspective and cooperative. Idealists seek meaning and significance and are concerned with finding their own unique identity. Their greatest strength is diplomatic intelligence. They excel at clarifying, unifying, individualizing, and inspiring.

I am an Idealist.

I acknowledge and embrace it! I just took a Keirsey Temperament test and it confirmed what I've known for a long while now: I am an Idealist.

I find this really funny because a few years back, I took a personality test and one of my teachers made the comment, "Are those really your answers? Those are unreasonable. You must be some kind of idealist." Indeed, I am. I knew it back then, and I know it now. It's truth.

Idealists are abstract in speech and cooperative in pursing their goals. Their best developed intelligence role is either mentoring (Counselors and Teachers) or advocacy (Healers and Champions).

As the identity-seeking temperament, Idealists long for meaningful communication and relationships. They search for profound truths hidden beneath the surface, often expressing themselves in metaphor. Focused on the future, they are enthusiastic about possibilities, and they continually strive for self-renewal.

Sometimes my idealism is to my strength, sometimes to my detriment. I think the greatest thing about it is that even when it is to my detriment, my stubbornness and the "fight" in me doesn't allow me to just stay there. I move forward.

As I look at things I've studied, things I've written, and just the general things I focus on in life, I could not agree more with the following assessment:

Interests: Idealists tend to study the humanities. They seek careers facilitating the personal growth of others, whether through education, counseling, or other pursuits that promote the happiness and fulfillment of individuals and society.

Orientation: The lives of Idealists are guided by their devotion to their personal ethics. They are altruistic, taking satisfaction in the well-being of others. They believe in the basic goodness of the world and of the people in it. They take a holistic view toward suffering and misfortune, regarding them as part of a larger, unknowable truth, a mystical cause-and-effect. With an eye toward the future, they view life as a journey toward a deeper spiritual knowledge.

Self-image: The Idealists' self-esteem is rooted in empathetic action; their self-respect in their benevolence; and their self-confidence in their personal authenticity.

Values: Their general demeanor is enthusiastic. They seek deeper self-knowledge and want to be understood for who they are behind the social roles they are forced to play. They aspire to wisdom that transcends ego and the bounds of the material world.

Social roles: Idealists seek mutuality in their personal relationships. Romantically, they want a soulmate with whom they can share a deep spiritual connection. As parents, they encourage their children to form harmonious relationships and engage in imaginative play. In their professional and social lives, Idealists strive to be catalysts of positive change.

Idealists focus not on what is but on what could be. They see the world as rich with possibilities for deeper understanding.

Idealists believe that conflict raises barriers between people, preventing society from reaching its full potential. Idealists seek harmony in personal and professional relationships, working toward solutions that respect the needs of all parties involved.

This is basically me.

1 comment:

Joy said...

and i got rational:

Rationals are the problem solving temperament, particularly if the problem has to do with the many complex systems that make up the world around us. Rationals might tackle problems in organic systems such as plants and animals, or in mechanical systems such as railroads and computers, or in social systems such as families and companies and governments. But whatever systems fire their curiosity, Rationals will analyze them to understand how they work, so they can figure out how to make them work better.

In working with problems, Rationals try to find solutions that have application in the real world, but they are even more interested in the abstract concepts involved, the fundamental principles or natural laws that underlie the particular case. And they are completely pragmatic about their ways and means of achieving their ends. Rationals don't care about being politically correct. They are interested in the most efficient solutions possible, and will listen to anyone who has something useful to teach them, while disregarding any authority or customary procedure that wastes time and resources.

Rationals have an insatiable hunger to accomplish their goals and will work tirelessly on any project they have set their mind to. They are rigorously logical and fiercely independent in their thinking -- are indeed skeptical of all ideas, even their own -- and they believe they can overcome any obstacle with their will power. Often they are seen as cold and distant, but this is really the absorbed concentration they give to whatever problem they're working on. Whether designing a skyscraper or an experiment, developing a theory or a prototype technology, building an aircraft, a corporation, or a strategic alliance, Rationals value intelligence, in themselves and others, and they pride themselves on the ingenuity they bring to their problem solving.

Rationals are very scarce, comprising as little as 7 to 10 percent of the population. But because of their drive to unlock the secrets of nature, and to develop new technologies, they have done much to shape our world.

Rationals at Work
As a Rational, you seek to acquire and apply expertise. You thrive in an autonomous and intellectually stimulating workplace, working alongside other competent people, pursuing knowledge or creating systems. Your core need to follow the driving force of your own intelligence leads to particular career challenges. For example, recognition of your expertise may lead to your being put "in charge" of other people, as a manager, when you might prefer to remain immersed in projects of your own.

You are fascinated with developing strategic plans for others to use. In your preferred environment, you work behind the scenes while someone else takes the active leadership role. Often, you are driven to step in as leader when you become impatient with the way a project is going. In your ideal job, you independently analyze systems and make recommendations about how objectives will best be reached; someone else does the work of delegating work, motivating people, or enforcing work duties. You want challenge in your work and become frustrated when asked to merely follow routines, especially if those routines are inefficient.