kjp

So I’ve been wondering about myself a bit recently. This has been for a few reasons: a change at work (significant and good); a speech I need to give at rostrum (about... me); introspection encouraged at a work “soft skills” thingy; cleaning up my apartment; thinking about a Christmas letter for 2007 (ha!).

Part of the story is that over the past year, I haven’t been very happy, at all… but I haven’t realised it until recently. The fact that things around the apartment didn’t ever seem to get done; disorganisation, not being able to stay focussed were all probably signs of something going awry.

So, some questions for me: (a) who am I; (b) who do I want to be. If they’re not the same, then I (or anyone for that matter) is going to get stressed. There’s several jokes for (a), but I probably should write down (b) for my own good.

So, I’ve got to think about who I want to be. An incomplete list: happy, healthy, friendly, caring, trusting, wise, unmaterialistic. But what do I want from my living arrangements? Simple, organised, clean, tidy. And what do I want for my day to day routine? Exercise, healthy food, sleep. I eat well, but don’t get enough of either exercise or sleep.

It’s interesting that I’m happy to keep the apartment clean when I have flatmate, but I’m slack about it when it’s only me (really only cleaning before people are around). It’s probably an indicator of my own self value / state of mind. Living by myself has been good – I’ve been able to have my own space, and do what I like. But the downside has been the increase in a sense of loneliness / isolation. This last point is quite subtle really – it’s hard to pick unless you’re looking from the outside / back at yourself. Hmmmm.

Part of it also that I haven’t had something to work on (to keep me busy outside of work and band, outdoors stuff, social stuff, etc). The only real thing would have been house hunting – but nothing came of that. I do have a ‘project’ to keep me busy for the next half a year or so (South America – more in the next post).

Another interpretation for the past year is that I’ve been a bit of peter pan, not wanting to grow up / not being responsible for my future (ie: ambling through life). There’s maybe a bit of this – but not dominant issue. But having something to work towards (South America) probably helps. The other issue is being single – not wanting to move on with things because then I’m further down the path of singletonness.

So some tasks for me: reorganise the apartment (already doing this); get someone in to share the flat; start walking / jogging to work; going to bed before I’m tired (turning off computer and stereo at a set time).

At a soft skills / emotional intelligence course in October (?) last year, there was a section on personality types, and how they interact. There seems to be many different personality type tests available. In the past I’d done a Myers Brigg test online. Well, did it several (four) times, and got four different answers. Hmmmm something odd there. Also, understanding people with 16 personality types might be useful for a psychologist, but not very useful for me in everyday life. Anyhow, the test on the course classified people’s temperaments according to four birds: Peacock, Dove, Owl, Eagle. This was very interesting; and useful for understanding how and why and who I get stressed out with. It makes it very interesting thinking about family, people at work. Useful as it’s good to understand yourself a bit more.

Anyhow, enough from me.