Not knowing who you are – or where you fit in- can feel like living in a state of chaos, inner turmoil, and uncertainty. It can make it hard to make decisions about your life, your relationships, and your work. Who am I, and what is my purpose in this world? Questions like these mark the beginnings of philosophy, ideology, and the study of psychology. It’s why people are so obsessed with discovering their 16 personalities type and understanding their Enneagram and Cognitive Functions.
So we shouldn’t fear such questions – they have led to creativity, evolution, and discovery. They are passing states that produce insight and self-discovery. But why do I have to suffer under these questions? You might ask. And is there a way to skip ahead to the part where I get the insight? Let’s talk about that.
Beware of unearned wisdom
The very idea of “skipping ahead” to self-discovery and skipping the discomfort of “not knowing who you are” is dangerous. It will tempt you to rush the process of self-discovery. But surely, nothing is wrong with going fast, you might say. I have important decisions to make. I need to choose what to study, where to work, who to date, and what kind of life to live. These decisions are important and urgent. If I don’t find the answer soon, I’m going to waste away my life in doubt and miss out on the joy of living.
The idea here is that once you discover who you are, life will become instantly pleasant, a path will open up for you, and you’ll be able to live a life of joy, fun, and love. But before you find that, you might think you are forced to hold yourself back, to avoid making connections, to delay applications for jobs or universities. After all, you could never just go out and do something, and later on discover that it wasn’t the right choice, could you?
Unless it was the case, of course, that the process of self-discovery came from going out into the real world, falling in love, making friends, and being the fool. I’m telling you, it is. I went around my teenage life and early 20s quite the fool. I made all kinds of mistakes. I jumped from hobby to hobby, determined to find my passion. I don’t think I would have found it by just sitting in my room and waiting. Now, don’t get me wrong, taking time to introspect and reflect on your actions, introverted, internal time, it’s important. It makes a difference. It produces insight.
It makes you realize things. But it’s the pendulum swing from going out and going inwards that makes you learn about who you are. Obviously, staying in action, doing, doing, and doing, it would get you hopelessly lost, but I see just as many people lost in thought as in action. Thought and action should simply be a means of exercising consciousness and gaining wisdom. Introversion and extroversion are the paths to insight and truth, but only when you can walk along both paths, hand in hand, treating them like comrades rather than enemies.
My point is that rushing to find answers about who you are will make you obsessed with personality types, masks, and personas; it will make you focused on what’s on the surface rather than what is underneath. If you’re too eager to patch up the holes you find in your chaos and complexity of your soul, you’re going to stifle it. It’s going to kill your passion, your creativity, your purpose. So beware of unearned wisdom, beware of rushing for answers, beware of the thought of wanting to “skip ahead” to the answer. I know people who have been rushing to find their personality type for more than a decade, still jumping from type to type, always convinced it’s right in the palm of their hand, when really, they’re just trading one mask for another.
Why I’m Challenging The 16 Personalities
The 16 personalities are masks. They’re personas. They’re the surface of who a person is, never what is inside. We live in an age of personas and masks, a superficial society focused on selling, marketing, and presenting the self in search of likes, attention, and approval. It’s exhausting for everyone involved. It makes us feel like we’re the only humans in a world of fakeness. In fact, we’re all human, but we can’t see the human in one another, only the perfectly crafted persona they wear on top.
People assume they’re the only special ones; they feel misunderstood and yearn for understanding, but how can we understand when we cling to labels? I can’t eat or become full on the wrapping paper of a meal; I need to open and unbox it to discover the nourishment inside.
I might go to an event, and I might be my most charming version of myself, the most perfect one. I might be perfectly Extroverted, perfectly creative, perfectly warm, perfectly disciplined, an ENFJ Caregiver, a public speaker, and a visionary. But that’s not who I am. That’s not the person my wife knows, or the person my children will know. Thank god. They love the human that is underneath. Are you loved for the person you are undearneath?
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