A, B, C...

The hubby and I got a babysitter last night, and went to a party at the home of a friend and former co-worker of mine, and on the way home we had a chance to do something that's often rare for parents of a young child: talk to each other. Not about our son, or about something that needs to be done around the house. We had a chance to just talk to each other.

On my end, the conversation turned towards something that's come up more than a few times in my life; that when it comes to personality types, I'm definitely not a "Type A" personality. In fact, I've often referred to myself as a "Type B surrounded by Type As"; especially here in D.C., a city which by its very nature seems to be a magnet to for type A personalities.

When I got home, it was still on my mind, so I looked around online, and found this test that would supposedly tell me whether I was a type A or not. I took it, fully expecting it would tell me I was a type B.

I got an answer I wasn't expecting. It turns out, there's a third: type C.

Far from being a Type A, you possess many of the characteristics of a Type C personality. Type C persons tend to have either an "everybody must win" attitude to life with "Live and Let Live" as their credo, or they have a more flaccid and submissive slant to their personality. Whatever the case may be, you seem to lack the drive that could help you achieve your goals.

I didn't know there was a type C. I was so shocked that I took the test a second time. I got the same results: type C. I couldn't help wondering just what it was that bothered me so much about those results, then I noticed one of the phrases echoing in my mind—…you seem to lack the drive that could help you achieve your goals. I instantly recognized it as a version of the phrase that kids like me often heard growing up, usually from teachers. In my case it went something like, "Terrance could accomplishi much more if he would only apply himself." Of course, I was applying myself, but evidently it just never looked like I was.

I remembered my first job when I came to D.C. It was a totally new experience for me, because the people I was around seemed to work under so much pressure, much of which seemed self-generated to me, whereas I just tried to do what was required of me for the job without rushing around and getting tied into knots. Some of the people I worked with seemed to think I was rather strange as a result. At one point, my supervisor called me into her office for a little pep talk and told me she wanted to see me "take more ownership" of things. She asked me if I knew what she meant. I said I did, but I truly had no idea. As far as I was concerned, she was speaking another language.

Now I know what she meant was what I've been told often since then; that I'm "too laid-back" or that I could "afford to be a little less laid-back." If tend to be pretty normally laid back (whatever that means), part of me thinks it might be more of an acquired survival/coping mechanism, though it coul d also just be my natural state. I've never been a particularly ambitious or competitive person, but I think at some point that way of being became a means of protection for me as well as just being part of who I am.

Growing into adulthood with untreated ADD made me well accquainted with failure, and also taught me that ambition has a price; a pretty high and painful one if you're handicapped in reaching your ambitions, right out of the starting gate.

It's a lesson I think I learned unconsciously during the 10 years or so I spent in the workplace before getting treatment for my ADD. Maybe being "laid-back" is part of who I naturally am, but I think some of it is also a sort of detachment I learned as a means of protecting myself from the consequences of setting amtibious goals and driving myself to reach them, since for me the consequences were usually a hard crash and a long, slow burn. Far from not having the drive and ambition to achieve my goals, I learned to stop having very many goals at all.

But then, not of all of it is necessarily learned. I've never been much of a competitive person, and I tend to avoid competition whenever possible. That may just be part of who I naturally am, but again I'm not sure how much of that is what I learned from so many years of competing and coming out on the bottom.I learned not to want to win, and not to want to lose, but to simply just be. Most competitions, I choose to sit out, and I often go out of my way not to be in competition with others.

Whatever the years it took me to absorb those lessons, I find that now—even after getting some successful treatment for my ADD—they're still a pretty big part of who I am. So, I don't know that I can necessarily blame it entirely on my ADD. It may just be the way that I am. But sometimes I find I still struggle with it. I still feel like I should set certain goals for myself, and that there are certain things I should have achieved by now; especially when I see people 10 years or more younger than me who have achieved far more in some areas than I had at that age, or even at the age I am now. But part of that is also me still feeling like I have a lot of "lost time" due to going so long before my ADD was diagnosed and treated. I'm still dealing with and coming to terms with the reality that I didn't get the help I needed until later in life. (Of course, as my partner pointed out, at least I didn't have to wait until I was 50 or 60 to get the help I needed.) I feel, sometimes, like I'm always going to be "behind" where I "should" be by now.

I think part of that comes from living in a culture that seems to place high value on and gives high rewards to the "type A personality," much in the same was it values and rewards extroversion over introversion, etc. I have a sneaking suspicion that "type C" personalities are about the same percentage of the population as my Myers Briggs type, INFP which is somewhere between 1% and 5% of the population. Again, I'm in the minority.

So maybe I'll never be "CEO of This," "Vice President of That," or "Director of the Other." And maybe that's OK. It's very easy to fall into the mindset of thinking that's the way I should be, and measuring myself by a yardstick that isn't actually very well suited to me in the first place. And maybe that's the lesson of this whole rumination to begin with.

Comments

[Tim Who?]

My type A score? 39

Far from being a Type A, you possess many of the characteristics of a Type C personality. Type C persons tend to have either an "everybody must win" attitude to life with "Live and Let Live" as their credo, or they have a more flaccid and submissive slant to their personality. Whatever the case may be, you seem to lack the drive that could help you achieve your goals.

No wonder I like your writing so much!

And I wouldn't put too much stock in this test I believe it is flawed. I should be much higher on the scale if not a high B or a low A.
My hubby (retired) Dir of a State Psychiatric Hospital and RN for 30 years also thinks the questions were poorly worded. And believes that 3 or 4 hundred question are needed to get the correct answer.

One look at my score (39) and he said "No fucking way" either you lied on every question or the test is flawed.
I didn't lie.

So for right now I have to put this test in the "Good idea but needs work" group.

[waveflux]

My score: 50.

Smack in the middle of the spectrum - a prototypical Type B.

Seems appropriate.

[Bernie]

I think the last two paragraphs you wrote were the most accurate. Such tests and measurements begin with the mindset that the Type A personality is the most desireable. They believe--mistakenly, in my opinion--that winning is everything. I think, as do people in many cultures outside the U.S., that win-win scenarios, cooperation, connection to community, respect for other opinions and views, are far more important than trying to be the king of the mountain all the time.

Value your Type C personality. We need more like you.

[DeAnn]

My type A score was 61. I actually thought it would be higher because, well, I know me. I'm type B:

You seem to have a Type B personality. Your personality draws characteristics from each of the other personality types, that is, Type A and Type C. Either you adjust your behavior depending on the situation, or you tend to be moderated in your attitudes. In any case, you are the most balanced of the three personality types.

[RomanticSlut]

This has to be the most personable non-political blog I have read from you in a while, I liked it, I came out to be a 39, in the middle of the spectrum between type a and c, so they called me a type b.

[Sonya]

I just did the same test and got a 39 with the same description. People always tell me I'm "too laid back" but I feel the same as you, why should I stress myself.