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- Jan 25, 2014
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Hi!
EDIT: It seems that this has been sorted out
So I have been aware of enneagram for a long time now, and I am near certain I am a 1w2. Out of all of the personality theories this one has the smallest level of doubt from others. That said, I have never actually figured out my tritype before, and at best I think it would be interesting to learn. I have been reading about it over the past few days but so far can't come up with a definitive conclusion on my own like I have with other things. Thus, I need some external opinions to figure this out. I've written up a little blurb about who I am and all that jazz. It's not all encompising by any means, but I tried to capture some major themes with myself.
It's difficult to come up with a single word to describe myself, but a prominant one (that also functions as a good starting place) would be: reflective. I am someone who considers my experiences, attempts to analyze them, understand them from many angles, including my own and what others might see. It's not good enough to observe and know it, I need to go deeper. This applies to interpersonal relationships, external events, the environment, work/school, w/e. I am driven to understand most of what I encounter at a level that I not only understand myself, but at a level where it can be explained to others with relative ease. That's not to say I can or want to do it with everything. I have learned over the years that it is incredibly unhealthy to introspect on everything, and have trained myself to not always do it, and it's become a nice habit that doesn't require much conscious effort anymore.
I fit the literal definition of a perfectionist almost to the letter. I am not a perfectionist with everything, but no one is either. Unfortunately, I am a negative-motivation perfectionist, and this has been innate since childhood. Meaning, I am primaraly driven by the desire to not fail in persuit of my goal, not to win or be the best. It's pushed me to being a very high achieving individual. My goals/bars are always set high by virtue of this. I reach one, and it gets moved up. Every single time. Nothing is ever good enough, it can always be better. It's managed to the best of my ability, and nearly never interferes with interpersonal relationships. It only becomes a problem at work/school. I've never had a true romantic relationship (sadly), so that's excluded. I am also innately a highly binary thinker (black/white), and it highlights my overall presentation as well. By in large, I come across as someone who totally loves something, or totally hates something. I have to consciously tell myself to find middle ground all the time. It appears worse than it is, but having so many people tell me time and time again that I am so binary that I regard it as a truth in myself. I have had to train myself to consider the grey, and not to "fit the data to the conclusion" for the sake of a perfect unified solution. I am the one that defines success and failure. I need some framework to work under that is objective, but I will push it higher pretty much every time.
I am verbose (this post highlights this). I am naturally inclined to explain everything in plodding detail so someone has the most informed prospective on something. This comes across in my writing and speech. When I give presentations (the initial practice run) at work/school, I am very often told I explained too much, and need to cut back. I am also very careful/calculated in my speech and I don't want words to be minced/confused/misinterpreted. I also put a lot of tonal inflection in my speech as this imparts speceficity with what I am saying. I use both explicit and implicit information to convey what I am saying or doing. I also apply this to my mind and thoughts as well. All in all, I hate errors and avoid them as much as I am able to.
It's difficult to explain my emotional side. While I am someone who feels emotions rather strongly, and the physical manifestions of them can last considerbly longer than the mental attributes of the emotion. This can lead to confusion on my end, as the lack of mental aspect results in no easy pathway to resolve the feeling completely. I am not particularly attached to people. I can snip the cord with anyone with little issue. While I am friendly with most everyone, and have the ability to be very social (I have no social anxiety, nor am I very shy), I often lack true empathy for others (most of mine is moral cognition). I am very careful/calculated with interpersonal relationships and almost never experience conflict due to being very proactive against it. I have experienced a lot of pain emotionally (stemming from anxiety/depression) and it has made me rather dead on the inside in regards to feeling in recent years. I avoid most situations that elicit strong feeling when I am around others as I do not like expressing something that I am not in control of in myself at all. My moods flux rather quickly and can change for seemingly no reason. With that said, I also enjoy feeling strong emotions in the right contexts. In fact I thrive off of it and need it in many cases. I can be an adrenaline junkie and am involved in several things that very much elicit them.
This could be to recurrent depression issues that I have that never go away, but my energy levels are rather low. I am always tired, drained, sleepy, unmotivated. I very often want to take the path of least resistance. I'll put off and ignore important things for as long as possible when I don't have the energy to do it. The problem is, it will REALLY eat at me constantly until it's done. This is a problem because this eating at me drains me A LOT. Yet, my energy levels are low that I can't do what's required to get my energy back. If I feel like I am not progressing forward, things aren't improving, or I can't see easily when they will improve my drive dies off quite a bit. Success is important. But I don't want to expend the energy. I feel like I am super lazy all the time, and I see evidence around me that shows it. Yet, everyone I know says I work hard, often too hard. The thing is though, I have the ability to be really manipulative, and I use it. One of the last things I want is to be seen as lazy or a failure, so I pay attention (really really close and elaborate attention) to make it seem like I am not. As such, the information of others isn't reliable. I can never know what is actually true, and this eats at me a shitton. I hate uncertainty with a burning passion.
I really like being in leadership positions, and I naturally find myself in them without trying much. I very much enjoy taking charge, so long as I know I will be competent in what I do. If I do not have that confidence I will not take the leadership position. For that reason, I do not seek power for the sake of power, despite my much enjoyment of having it; I have to be able to wield it well. I have many opinions, and I feel very stifieled if I can not express them, or in some cases apply them.
With anything I do (when I first do it) I need a lot of structure and become extremely frustrated without it. If possible, I will create a significant amount of it. Once I become familiar with something, I no longer need it. Interestingly, if it takes too long for me to develop a method/pattern for something, I may ditch the structure sooner than I should and it results in massive disorganization that I can never seem to pull myself out of.
I think that's good for a start. If you have any questions or need me to clarify/add please feel free to ask.
EDIT: It seems that this has been sorted out
So I have been aware of enneagram for a long time now, and I am near certain I am a 1w2. Out of all of the personality theories this one has the smallest level of doubt from others. That said, I have never actually figured out my tritype before, and at best I think it would be interesting to learn. I have been reading about it over the past few days but so far can't come up with a definitive conclusion on my own like I have with other things. Thus, I need some external opinions to figure this out. I've written up a little blurb about who I am and all that jazz. It's not all encompising by any means, but I tried to capture some major themes with myself.
It's difficult to come up with a single word to describe myself, but a prominant one (that also functions as a good starting place) would be: reflective. I am someone who considers my experiences, attempts to analyze them, understand them from many angles, including my own and what others might see. It's not good enough to observe and know it, I need to go deeper. This applies to interpersonal relationships, external events, the environment, work/school, w/e. I am driven to understand most of what I encounter at a level that I not only understand myself, but at a level where it can be explained to others with relative ease. That's not to say I can or want to do it with everything. I have learned over the years that it is incredibly unhealthy to introspect on everything, and have trained myself to not always do it, and it's become a nice habit that doesn't require much conscious effort anymore.
I fit the literal definition of a perfectionist almost to the letter. I am not a perfectionist with everything, but no one is either. Unfortunately, I am a negative-motivation perfectionist, and this has been innate since childhood. Meaning, I am primaraly driven by the desire to not fail in persuit of my goal, not to win or be the best. It's pushed me to being a very high achieving individual. My goals/bars are always set high by virtue of this. I reach one, and it gets moved up. Every single time. Nothing is ever good enough, it can always be better. It's managed to the best of my ability, and nearly never interferes with interpersonal relationships. It only becomes a problem at work/school. I've never had a true romantic relationship (sadly), so that's excluded. I am also innately a highly binary thinker (black/white), and it highlights my overall presentation as well. By in large, I come across as someone who totally loves something, or totally hates something. I have to consciously tell myself to find middle ground all the time. It appears worse than it is, but having so many people tell me time and time again that I am so binary that I regard it as a truth in myself. I have had to train myself to consider the grey, and not to "fit the data to the conclusion" for the sake of a perfect unified solution. I am the one that defines success and failure. I need some framework to work under that is objective, but I will push it higher pretty much every time.
I am verbose (this post highlights this). I am naturally inclined to explain everything in plodding detail so someone has the most informed prospective on something. This comes across in my writing and speech. When I give presentations (the initial practice run) at work/school, I am very often told I explained too much, and need to cut back. I am also very careful/calculated in my speech and I don't want words to be minced/confused/misinterpreted. I also put a lot of tonal inflection in my speech as this imparts speceficity with what I am saying. I use both explicit and implicit information to convey what I am saying or doing. I also apply this to my mind and thoughts as well. All in all, I hate errors and avoid them as much as I am able to.
It's difficult to explain my emotional side. While I am someone who feels emotions rather strongly, and the physical manifestions of them can last considerbly longer than the mental attributes of the emotion. This can lead to confusion on my end, as the lack of mental aspect results in no easy pathway to resolve the feeling completely. I am not particularly attached to people. I can snip the cord with anyone with little issue. While I am friendly with most everyone, and have the ability to be very social (I have no social anxiety, nor am I very shy), I often lack true empathy for others (most of mine is moral cognition). I am very careful/calculated with interpersonal relationships and almost never experience conflict due to being very proactive against it. I have experienced a lot of pain emotionally (stemming from anxiety/depression) and it has made me rather dead on the inside in regards to feeling in recent years. I avoid most situations that elicit strong feeling when I am around others as I do not like expressing something that I am not in control of in myself at all. My moods flux rather quickly and can change for seemingly no reason. With that said, I also enjoy feeling strong emotions in the right contexts. In fact I thrive off of it and need it in many cases. I can be an adrenaline junkie and am involved in several things that very much elicit them.
This could be to recurrent depression issues that I have that never go away, but my energy levels are rather low. I am always tired, drained, sleepy, unmotivated. I very often want to take the path of least resistance. I'll put off and ignore important things for as long as possible when I don't have the energy to do it. The problem is, it will REALLY eat at me constantly until it's done. This is a problem because this eating at me drains me A LOT. Yet, my energy levels are low that I can't do what's required to get my energy back. If I feel like I am not progressing forward, things aren't improving, or I can't see easily when they will improve my drive dies off quite a bit. Success is important. But I don't want to expend the energy. I feel like I am super lazy all the time, and I see evidence around me that shows it. Yet, everyone I know says I work hard, often too hard. The thing is though, I have the ability to be really manipulative, and I use it. One of the last things I want is to be seen as lazy or a failure, so I pay attention (really really close and elaborate attention) to make it seem like I am not. As such, the information of others isn't reliable. I can never know what is actually true, and this eats at me a shitton. I hate uncertainty with a burning passion.
I really like being in leadership positions, and I naturally find myself in them without trying much. I very much enjoy taking charge, so long as I know I will be competent in what I do. If I do not have that confidence I will not take the leadership position. For that reason, I do not seek power for the sake of power, despite my much enjoyment of having it; I have to be able to wield it well. I have many opinions, and I feel very stifieled if I can not express them, or in some cases apply them.
With anything I do (when I first do it) I need a lot of structure and become extremely frustrated without it. If possible, I will create a significant amount of it. Once I become familiar with something, I no longer need it. Interestingly, if it takes too long for me to develop a method/pattern for something, I may ditch the structure sooner than I should and it results in massive disorganization that I can never seem to pull myself out of.
I think that's good for a start. If you have any questions or need me to clarify/add please feel free to ask.
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