{"id":2911,"date":"2015-12-30T23:11:51","date_gmt":"2015-12-30T23:11:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/?p=2911"},"modified":"2015-12-30T23:11:51","modified_gmt":"2015-12-30T23:11:51","slug":"everything-else-is-secondary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/2015\/12\/30\/everything-else-is-secondary\/","title":{"rendered":"Everything Else Is Secondary"},"content":{"rendered":"

In which Daniel struggles with one of his least favorite words.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"ENTJ\"<\/a><\/p>\n

To my dear reader,<\/p>\n

Of all the words in the English language, one of my least favorites has always been \u201cleader.\u201d It\u2019s a word I associate with arrogance, with overbearing men, with bureaucracy and rigidity. It\u2019s also a word that holds a great deal of power over the world\u2019s collective imagination. We are all, so it seems, supposed to be striving to be leaders in our fields and communities, because leaders get to live high on their pedestals while the plebeians muck around in the filth. I\u2019ve never felt very empowered, so equating myself with a leader always seemed ludicrous.<\/p>\n

It is for this reason, alongside my dislike for teams, that I did not consider myself one until well into college. This isn\u2019t to say that, while in college, I\u2019ve felt that I am better than others \u2013 if anything, my eyes have been opened to my insignificance in all fields \u2013 but rather that I\u2019ve begun to embrace the idea of setting an example for others.<\/p>\n

A big reason for this is, to my surprise, a personality test – the Myers-Briggs Personality Assessment. The test measures four dichotomies of a personality \u2013 introversion vs. extroversion, intuition vs. sensing, thinking vs. feeling, and judgement vs. perception.\u00a0 It\u2019s been around for more than half a century and is incredibly popular amongst all sorts of fields, as well as controversial. Chances are that, should you bring this test up with a group of people, someone will start flapping their arms and squawking that the test is invalid and unscientific.<\/p>\n

I know very little about the test\u2019s origins, current uses or validity. It seems probable that the test measures things that might be too unquantifiable to be precise, and a common argument is that it\u2019s too much of a cage; people can\u2019t be reduced down to four measurements.<\/p>\n

My own opinion is that such a test only means as much as you put store in it, and is descriptive, not prescriptive. The results of such a test might only reflect how you feel at the moment you took the test. But that could be said about any assessment of a personality, so in that case, you might as well throw in the towel all together.<\/p>\n

Whatever others may feel, looking at my test results on 16personalities.com felt like aspects of myself had been articulated as I\u2019d never been able to. Even if others disagree, I looked at the quote of a fellow ENTJ (extroverted-intuitive-thinking-judging) and thought, I could have written this:<\/p>\n

Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma \u2014 which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.<\/em><\/p>\n

-Steve Jobs<\/em><\/p>\n

With all due respect,<\/p>\n

Daniel Wolfert<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In which Daniel struggles with one of his least favorite words. To my dear reader, Of all the words in the English language, one of my least favorites has always been \u201cleader.\u201d It\u2019s a word I associate with arrogance, with … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":379,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[526,528,527],"class_list":["post-2911","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daniel-wolfert-16","tag-entj","tag-ledership","tag-myers-briggs-personality-test"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/379"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2911"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2913,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2911\/revisions\/2913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2911"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2911"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.pugetsound.edu\/whatwedo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2911"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}