Who Am I Again?

I like to think that I’m above pop culture fads, as most people do, but I’m not. While I don’t use homepage blurbs as a primary news source, I do like to look at the fashion galleries and the self-help bits.



And the Heavens Opened & Proclaimed: You Are....

 While browsing these headlines about a month ago, I came across an article that claimed that your personality could be discerned based on which Christmas specials you like. A psychological profile in 500 words or less. So, of course, I had to peek.

It was an unnerving experience. My favorite specials are numerous, but the main two are How the Grinch Stole Christmas (animated version) and A Charlie Brown Christmas. No real surprises, right? The basic tenants of both specials, so I thought, were the celebration of the spirit, not the commercialization, of the holiday season.

Nope. Apparently, I have issues of which I was not aware.

Since I like the Grinch, I am seething with envy of all others who can live simply within suburban networks. I’m too snobbish to shop at the popular places and cannot deal with mass-produced imitations. It’s the real thing, or nothing. The only nice thing about me is that I am secretly generous with those in need and I like cats.

As for Charlie Brown, the results weren’t as awful. I am a romantic, it seems, and I live in a private world wishing for the past, refusing to grow up. I’m a mush, I admit, but I know better than to expect the world to “improve” on large scale. I know we can only improve the world one person and one place at a time. As for the past, uh, no. I am fine where I am. 

Is there anything to all of this? Part of me gets it. There’s a strain of truth in just about anything if you seek it. But are these tests telling of anything remotely true?

Years ago, I worked with a girl who informed the office that your personality was formed by which character you favored from A.A. Milne’s works about Winnie-the-Pooh. If you liked Tigger, you were an eternal optimist and probably a bit hyper. If you liked Owl, you were an intellectual. Eeyore, well, you were an "Eeyore": nothing was ever right and good in the world. Pooh represented contentedness and a simple love for life, etc.

A Winnie-the-Pooh Sight on an Eeyore Day



So, for fun, I just took 2 of the myriad of Winnie-the-Pooh personality tests available online. And the result was…

…I’m a Winnie-the-Pooh.

Oh, and an Eeyore.

Each test had a different set of questions. Even answered as honestly as possible when presented with rigid options, the results were completely divergent. So which test was more accurate? Which result was correct?

Obviously, they both were.



So I Added a Little Color to Make It a Tigger Sight!

 No one consists of one set of values and traits, preferences. No one really holds the same point-of-view from one day to the next because no one’s existence is static. No one lives the same circumstances every single day, which makes it impossible to not change.

Granted, there are a lot of people who will never admit that they’ve accepted a different perspective. Usually, and sadly, that’s for fear of appearing to have been wrong the first time. Most of us, though, welcome some or many changes throughout the years.

The moral of the story as I see it, is that one cannot be defined fully as long as one is alive. Definition comes from living. It’s a infinite work-in-progress. That’s not a bad thing at all.

Take the good, the sad, and absorb it, use it the way you see best, and enjoy all of it. Keep telling the world who you really are!