Stop Telling People They’re Too Much (Or Not Enough)

 

Whenever we do a personality quiz on the podcast, I am never surprised by the results. For that matter, neither are Christen and Amber. I’ve found that the personality topics we’ve covered (Clutter Bug, Enneagram, and this week’s Myers-Briggs) all seem to point to the same thing – I am an Idealist…a Perfectionist…a Reformer, and those assessments would be correct.  I am the type of person who wants to make things “right,” whatever that might mean. I look at the world and somehow see that this or that would be so much better “if only….” Which is not to say that those things aren’t perfectly alright just the way they are. I just happen to see the potential. After all, there is always room for improvement, right?

In June, I wrote “I am What I am…” in an attempt to defend myself against accusations that my natural tendencies are somehow wrong – that my instinct to help others better themselves is not only unwanted, but also somehow offensive, and that I needed to change. Those allegations hurt me, and I spent weeks picking apart my relationships with friends and family to see if I had been overstepping or just offering up what people seemed to want and expect of me. I am, after all, the matriarch of our family, the inferred leader of my peer group, and the “Crone” of the Modern Musings podcast. In my view, there’s a great deal of implied wisdom in those labels, and with wisdom comes the duty to share it liberally.

I’d also like to point out that, for most of my life, other people have brought their problems to me. Whether they are asking for advice or simply want a sympathetic ear, I cannot know for sure, but I have always offered my advice freely, so I must assume people want to hear it, or they wouldn’t share their problems with me in the first place. I am who I am, and they know that is what I do. Besides, what good is a friend who can see the answer or the truth but doesn’t tell you? I treasure the advice that other people give me, even if I don’t follow through on it, mainly because I respect their opinions. I know they have my best interests at heart, but also because their opposing viewpoint allows me to look at the situation from another perspective. Looking at a situation through their eyes might even help me solidify my original view. People give me advice all the time. I can take it or leave it. Why is it so bad if I offer the same?

Another way to approach this conundrum is to consider a few other personality types. If the Perfectionist/Reformer needs to stop trying to reform and perfect things, then should the Enneagram Type 2 Giver stop trying to find ways to be helpful to be liked, or should the Type 3 Achiever stop worrying about their public image and quit trying to impress everyone? What about the Type 7 Enthusiast? If their personality type makes them seek out fun and adventure to avoid emotional pain, then does that mean they should stop having fun and just face their sadness? While the impulse might be to answer “yes,” it’s really not that simple. 

The truth is, people are who they are. Our personalities are shaped by a combination of genetics and life experiences. Our personalities change with time, as demonstrated by the evolution of my Myers-Briggs ENFP result from premarital counseling in 1988 into an ESTJ and the INFJ that I am today. This is especially true of growth-minded individuals who actively work to better themselves and heal trauma. So, while I may currently be a Myers-Briggs Advocate/Idealist, chances are that all my “perfecting” and “advocating” with my friends and family may be one of the ways I work through perfecting and advocating in my own life, and if I continue to face my shadows and dig deep into what makes me tick, I might begin to shift my personality yet again.

Similarly, when the Enneagram’s Giver learns that they don’t have to give everything to be liked, and the Achiever finds that they can be their true, authentic self without losing the respect of others, then they, too, will begin a shift into other personality types. The Enthusiast has but to slow down and face their demons to grow beyond the superficial life of novelty and adventure. It doesn’t mean they won’t enjoy those things anymore, and it doesn’t mean that any of these personalities become anything less – it means they can become something even more.

When we tell people to be less than who they truly are, when we ask people to tone down their tendencies or change themselves to make ourselves feel more comfortable, then we are telling them that they aren’t enough. Or that they are too much. We are saying more about who we are than about anything they are doing. When we offer advice, it should always be to lift someone up and make them more.  We should never ask them to change outright or be less. It’s a fine line, but I’m pretty sure the Advocate-Idealist-Perfectionist-Reformer will be the first one to try. I just hope that recipients can learn to listen to the message, if not the messenger.

What I am is What I am

 

I started writing this blog, and this title came to me from an Edie Brickel and the New Bohemians song (circa 1988). In it, the singer (Edie Brickel) expounds on her feelings about taking philosophy and religion too seriously. I know many people think that about psychology, too, especially when it comes to archetypes. You either believe in them or you don’t. I’ve found that the Myers-Briggs, enneagram, and even astrology archetypes present a simple way to categorize personalities, and they help me take a more logical approach to understanding who I am, how I operate,  and what my motivations might be. The same is true of Jung’s Collective Unconscious, which Amber brought to us earlier this week.

I think we discussed several of the archetypes in the podcast, and we all had opinions on which ones seemed to fit us the most. I’m not here to rehash all that. What I want to talk about is whether or not it is “okay” to be a certain personality type. Must we always try to change? To become more of this and less of that? Is there anything inherently wrong with just being who we are?

When we recorded our Enneagram episode, I discovered that I am a Type 1 – the Perfectionist, also known as the Reformer. In my follow-up blog post, I shared what that looked like for me and how I cope with being a perfectionist in a non-perfect world. Most of what I talked about was changing me, specifically, changing how I react when life isn’t perfect. I felt empowered to understand why some things just seem to drive me crazy, and why I always feel the need to “fix” things or make them “better.” But then, something a friend told me made me think differently.

I don’t remember how we got into the conversation, or even what the specific topic was, but I think I mentioned something about a person complaining about their life but not taking any action to make it better. The person in question was quite resistant to suggestions of any kind, as though they liked being stuck in a never-ending cycle of frustration and disappointment. My friend pointed out that I shouldn’t offer advice because not everyone wants to be fixed. I can’t remember exactly how she worded it, but the point was that the person who needed to change was me, not the person who was complaining. She wanted me to mind my own business and leave well enough alone.

To be honest, I was hurt. Deeply hurt. My friend made it sound like I go around picking out what is wrong with everyone and trying to change them into my own image, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I don’t offer advice to everyone; in fact, I am very selective about the people I “nurture”, and I only provide it when I see that they are struggling with something or that a situation is hurting them. Even then, I don’t bring up the subject unless the person brings it up first, usually as a complaint, and the advice I offer is always based on my own experience with the same situation. However, my friend’s comment insinuated that my generosity in offering kind words of advice was some kind of character flaw that I needed to correct. Her comment made me start questioning everything I did.

I’m a Perfectionist/Reformer. It is my nature to try to fix things and make them better, not just for myself, but for everyone around me. Does that mean I am broken? Is being who I am wrong? For instance, another of my friends bemoaned the fact that her family never celebrated her birthday. This was after I had talked about what my family had done for my birthday. She insinuated that she wanted them to do something for her birthday, so I suggested that maybe she should just tell them what she wanted. Why suffer in silence? My family’s birthday celebrations didn’t just happen by accident – I planned them. I insisted on them. I made my expectations clear. Maybe, just maybe, her family didn’t even know that she wanted a birthday dinner. I said it pretty much like that, and I let it be. I didn’t goad her to take any action. I didn’t insinuate that she was wrong. I didn’t try to fix her. I just offered her another perspective, and I left it at that. Is that crossing some invisible line that I don’t know about?

Going back to Jung’s archetypes, in the podcast, we talked about how I am always busy, and how friends often tell me I do too much – that I should cut some of my activities out of my schedule. It always winds up turning into a discussion about how one friend does nothing but sit and read all day; she’s happy with that, but I cannot live that way. I enjoy having lots of things to do. I like having distractions from doing the same thing every day. I need multiple hobbies to balance out the multiple responsibilities that I am frequently burdened with, and which tend to take up most of my time. I can’t get rid of the responsibilities; if I were to cut back, it would mean giving up the things I enjoy. Yes, I would love to get rid of the extra responsibilities so that I have only fun things to do all day, but that’s not going to happen, and I am not willing to give up on the rest just because someone who doesn’t like to be busy thinks I do too much.

I’d also like to point out that I am somewhat confident that my personality lies somewhere on the autism spectrum. At the very least, I have ADHD and a bit of OCD, although not to the point that it interferes with my ability to live a fairly normal life. I’m quirky, have eclectic tastes, and tend to hop from one project to another. But in that autism/ADHD/OCD tangle is logic, and my brain loves logic. You might even say I have an engineer brain. So when I hear a problem, the logic part of my brain is looking for a solution. I am compelled to engineer my way out of it, even if what I am engineering is art, beliefs, or emotions. That’s who I am. I’m also very growth-minded. As a perfectionist and reformer, I want to be better, even if that means being less of a perfectionist and reformer. So my question circles back to this:

“If we, as healthy, self-accepting individuals, recognize these traits in ourselves and we understand how those tendencies affect us and the way we interact with others, isn’t that enough?” 

Are we somehow required to moderate those characteristics? To tone them down so they are more acceptable to others who aren’t so motivated? Does this need to change apply to all of the personality types? Am I supposed to dim my particular light just to fit in? And where do we draw that line? Is it every personality type, or just certain ones like the Perfectionist or the Performer? Are we supposed to balance ourselves so that we become more homogeneous? Is the end goal for us all to be the same? Or is it more likely that we need the Perfectionists to point out the flaws, just as we need the Epicure/Generalist to try all the things and discover what is new? By being different from one another, we help each other learn and grow, even when we don’t want to, and the balance comes from our diversity.  Isn’t it also true that those who are of my tribe will understand me and accept me as I am, a perfectionist and all?