I have long been an enthusiast of personality archetypes (see
my post of July 8, 2013). While I believe they are useful tools for
introspection, self-discovery, and personal development, I do not believe they
should be used to typecast and pigeonhole other people; human beings are simply
too complex to be lumped into one of a handful of descriptions. However, with
greater self-awareness comes a deeper insight into the inclinations,
motivations, and inherent worth of other people, thus leading to greater mutual
understanding.
Lately I’ve
discovered the enneagram types, a system based on ancient wisdom that has been
updated by many adherents to be relevant to our modern-day historical, cultural,
and scientific contexts. I’ve taken several of the free online assessments, and
gotten several different results. But after reading descriptions of the nine
types and responding to statements that resonate strongly with me, I’ve decided
that my dominant type is Seven, called by some the Adventurer and by others the
Enthusiast. Sevens desire life to be fun and exciting, and they want to make it
so for others. Sevens are often entertainers, storytellers, event planners,
travel agents, and the like. For a Seven, the world is rich with the potential
for wonder, excitement, discovery, and adventure, and we want to bring others
along for the ride.
Adventure
often entails risk. While I’ve never been much of a risk-taker—I avoided
engaging in physically risky activities such as contact sports, skiing, and the
like—I have embraced risk in other ways: through travel, exploration, new hobbies
and pursuits, academic challenges, relocation, and vicariously through reading,
television, film, and the internet. We Sevens get bored easily. Just look at my
resume, and you’ll see that staying in one place for too long is not my habit.
The thought of working for decades for the same employer abhors me, especially
because there’s so much else out there for me to discover and learn. I spent
the first twenty years of my life in the same small town, in only three
different houses, and remember often longing for the day when I could be free
from that confined existence. Before I ever set foot in another country (I was
in high school the first time I left the US—for a day trip into Canada—and in
college the first time I flew in an airplane, to Mexico), I read about far-away
places and their people and dreamed of experiencing those places and people for
myself.
In addition
to craving adventure and excitement, many Sevens desire to be in the limelight.
That’s what attracted me to drama club and band in high school, and theater
classes in college. That’s why I like to write, not to create a
critically-acclaimed work of great literature (Write to appeal to literati
snobs? Not me!), but to inform, inspire, and entertain others with my
storytelling. And I think for me, teaching was performing. I wasn’t as
concerned about the psychological processes of the teaching-learning experience,
or the positive impact I was making on future generations, as I was about
bringing learning to life for my students and making the experience stimulating
and exciting for them. As a professional educator, I recognize the value of
curriculum design and learning assessment—but let’s not take the fun out of it,
because if it ain’t fun, it ain’t worth doing…to a Seven, anyway.
I’m convinced
that had I been born hundreds of years ago, I would have been an explorer,
setting sail for the New World or the South Pacific or the Far East, discovering
for myself their mysterious, beautiful places and people. And if I were to be
born hundreds of years from now, I would most likely be an interstellar
traveler, just like the characters in the Star
Trek television shows, films, and novels I love so much. Sometimes I fantasize
about what role I would have on a starship such as the Enterprise: Would I be a ship’s historian, cataloging and
categorizing the crews’ discoveries? A xenologist, studying alien cultures and
specializing in first contact? Maybe I’d be in charge of crew training and
development, equipping personnel to perform their duties as efficiently as
possible. I’d certainly not be in command; I don’t enjoy being in charge and giving
orders to others. Nor would I be in engineering; science was always too concrete
and detail-oriented for me. And security? Not for me; I’m too sensitive to pain
to inflict it on others or experience it myself. I wouldn’t be ship’s
counselor, either. While I like helping people with their problems
occasionally, doing so day in and day out is mentally, emotionally, and physically
draining for me…not to mention just plain boring.
The paragraph
immediately preceding this one demonstrates one of my secondary enneagram
types, number Four: The Romantic. Romantics tend to live in the past and/or the
future, neglecting to fully live in the moment. That would be one of my
weaknesses: Focusing too much on what could be and not enough on what is. As a
goal for personal growth, I need to learn to live more in the moment, to see
the excitement and adventure in life as it is now. One of my goals this year, now
that I’ve left the confines of a full-time role as an academic counselor, is to
focus on acquiring the skills and knowledge I need to achieve my next career
goals and not let boredom or insecurity get in the way (it was insecurity, in
part, that led me to climb the academic career ladder in the first place). The
great voyages of discovery in the past required careful planning and patience,
and so it is with my own, new voyage of discovery into online teaching and web
design. Planning, patience, and perseverance are all part of the adventure,
too.
It has been
said that the journey is more important than the destination. For me, there is
adventure and excitement in both, for at the end of one journey lies the
beginning of the next. As J.R.R. Tolkien wrote, “…not all who wander are lost.”
Perhaps I’m just one of those who was born to wander.
