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I love personality quizzes.  I am frequently sucked into taking quizzes where I describe how I behave at a party (Um… I don’t go to the party?  Is that one of the choices?) or how I’d spend lottery money.  Of course I would click on an article that promised to tell me the ONLY WORTHY PERSONALITY QUIZ IN THE WORLD.

Because there are real personality tests out there:

Ones that are actually evidence-based and scientifically sound. That’s because, while most of the personality tests shared around the internet are, indeed, bogus procrastination devices, there is a science to personality, and it’s something that researchers really can put into a quantified, testable format.

It turns out that the test is just the Big Five, one that I’ve known about forever and have used to construct character personalities.  But reading the article made me remember why I like the Big Five and use it: that most of the time our personality swings in multiple directions, and it all comes down to a percentage of how much you fit somewhere, with other options being equally (though maybe less) possible.

For instance, I took the Personality Lab’s Sorting House quiz based on the concept of the Big Five and it told me that I was 81% compatible with Ravenclaw, the clear winner.  But I was 76% compatible with Hufflepuff, a close second.  I was 57% compatible with Slytherin but only 38% compatible with Gryffindor, which sounds correct EXCEPT I would have (1) put my compatibility with Gryffindor lower because I would crap my pants if (2) I had to sleep in the Slytherin section of the castle.  Not really even 38% brave of heart.

Anyway, the question I always have at the end of these things is whether our personalities are clumpable.  We’re told we’re unique; there’s no one earth is like us.  And yet I’m willing to bet that someone who takes the quiz above will end up with the exact same breakdown of 81%, 76%, 57%, and 38th for the corresponding houses.  And then what does it say about the two of us?  Are we more alike than two other random people or still equally as different?

Anyway take the quiz and tell me how you do.

Does it feel like there has been a glut of articles touting spending challenges this month?  It’s not the first time I’ve seen the idea floated, but I’ve been noticing them in every single publication I read.

The New York Times recounted Ann Patchett’s year without shopping.  She made up her own rules, allowing herself to purchase some things and not others.  The most interesting part of the article came when she discussed gifts:

The idea that our affection and esteem must manifest itself in yet another sweater is reductive. Elissa said she gave people time, a certificate to watch their kids or clean their house. “That,” she told me, “turned out to be the hardest thing. Time is so valuable.”

Or the idea that just waiting a few days can make a feeling pass:

For four days I really wanted a Fitbit. And then — poof! — I didn’t want one. I remember my parents trying to teach me this lesson when I was a child: If you want something, wait awhile. Chances are the feeling will pass.

Lifehacker suggested a month-long financial detox if you can’t handle a year, and focusing on one item that drains your wallet.  Mine is definitely books, but I’m okay with that.  I’m okay with supporting other writers or having a stack of books on hand.  At the end of my life, I don’t think I’ll ever feel that I wasted money on my books.

There were a bunch of others, more of the same touting either a timed challenge or a item-focused challenge, but the post that stood out for me came from Frugalwoods.  It’s really a post about owning less, which translates into buying less, but the reasoning behind it resonated with me:

It’s easier to operate in a home that’s not crammed with junk, it’s liberating to know where everything is, to have a clean spot for all your possessions, and to not waste time looking for things. It’s wonderful to not desire more stuff and it’s a boon to realize when you have enough.

Yes.  And this mantra: “The more I own, the more I have to clean, the more I have to store, and the more I’m responsible for.”  It’s a long post, but she got to the heart of why I’m drawn to these articles: because I see owning less as a way of using my time more effectively.  I hate losing things, and it’s hard to lose things when everything fits into a certain place.

I’ll argue that it’s much easier to do something like this when your life is like her life: Her husband is on-board with the plan and therefore (I assume) puts things back in their proper place, not messing up her system.  Her child is too young to make a true mess or acquire things.  I’d love for her to revisit this post in eight years, when her first child is ensconced in activities and her not-yet-born child has toys and whether she’s still able to hold on to her minimalist lifestyle.

If I had unlimited time, I would put it towards decluttering our house.  I need to scheduling it in, but because it’s not time sensitive, it gets pushed to the back burner in favour of other things that need to get done now.  Though perhaps if we set aside four-hour blocks around the calendar, we’ll be able to keep several in place and get the work done over several months.

We have to try, or I have to stop reading articles like this.  One or the other.

I’m in love with three things right now.

1. The Good Place

Oh my G-d, how did I not know about this show until now?  Josh started watching it while I copying over notes in bed after the Great Water Spill of 2018.  And I started snickering even though I was barely paying attention.  (It’s like even my subconscious knew that it was hearing something funny.)  And then my pen stopped moving.  And then I set aside the papers.  And then I became a frenzied television watcher trying to convince Josh of just one more episode every night while we made our way through season one on Netflix.  Season two is currently running on regular television, but I guess we’ll need to wait until it comes to Netflix since it’s nearing the end of the season?  Unless there’s a way to start at the beginning of season two right now?  All I know is that I like every character (though especially Chidi) and it consistently makes me laugh.  What a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant show.

2. Solve for Happy

Mo Gawdat’s book was on sale last week so I took a chance on it, and it has changed the way I feel and I’m only a few chapters into the book.  I can feel myself worrying a little bit less.  Or coming up with ways to shut off my worried brain for a few hours, which you’re allowed to do while solving for happy as long as you don’t use that as your go-to strategy to deal with life.  The whole book just makes sense.  It’s do-able.  It’s very X – Y = happy.  Plus it’s an enjoyable read; it doesn’t feel like work to get through it.

3. Every Heart a Doorway

Seanan McGuire’s book was also a sale purchase.  I downloaded the sample because the description sounded interesting, and I started to read it while I was waiting for my browser to update.  I got sucked into the story and felt so sad when the browser was done updating and it was time to get back to work.  I bought the book on the spot.  I’m in the middle of reading it right now.  Not only was it a great purchase BUT it’s made even better knowing there are two other books already out in the series and the fourth will be out some time in the future.  Go over to Amazon and read the first few pages using their “look inside” feature.  It was like someone wrote a story… for me.  Like she knew exactly what I would love and wrote it to make me insanely happy.

What are you smitten with right now?

Every time we used to go shopping at Politics and Prose, a bookstore near my old apartment, I would tell Josh that I wanted to work there.  “It makes me happy,” I argued.  “Books make me happy and this space makes me happy.”  But he argued that I liked it precisely because it wasn’t my work space.  It was my relaxation space.  If I started working there, it would no longer be my relaxation space because I couldn’t exactly hang out and rest in my work space, even if it was off-hours.  I’d no longer be a customer.  It’s be an employee who happened to not officially be at work.

Touché.

Fast forward many years later, and I have made some of my hobbies into jobs.  I made it my goal to become a professional gamer several years ago, and while I haven’t actually been paid to play video games, I have been paid to create games.  And I got paid to write a book about creating games.  And I can now play games without a second of guilt because they’re part of my job.  So… there’s that.

I read two articles this week, both in the same place.  The first was about why hobbies make us happy.  When asked what she does, the author responds with career information.  But she realizes everyone else is answering with the stuff they do outside of work.  They surf, hike, play music.

Thus begins a dissection of the American obsession with defining ourselves through our work and the importance of also looping in your hobbies.

Americans, so the cultural-industrial myth goes, are doers. But is that all we are? Not if we want to be healthy, according to Patricia W. Linville … Linville has studied the idea of “self-complexity” — or how a human sorts the many traits, roles, and other identity markers that make up him- or herself. She has found that the narrower a person’s vision of their “self” is, the more prone they are to depression and anxiety.

On the other side was an article about why we should keep our hobbies as hobbies and not try to turn them into a side hustle or our career.  (Uh… too late for me?)

At a time when Etsy shops and craft fairs and food trucks are decidedly mainstream, every domestic hobby is at risk of becoming a side hustle. I don’t want to boil and slice eggs for money. Messing around with a stand mixer or a sewing machine is fun for me because it’s not work. Personal pleasure is what makes a hobby a hobby.

There isn’t really an argument about why you shouldn’t except that people report losing joy in their hobby once it becomes work.  But I’ve found the opposite — it made me feel like I could really enjoy my hobby vs feel like I had to apologize for the time I dedicated to my hobby.  I have zero guilt about playing games because it helps me do my job better.

What are your hobbies?  And would you ever want to make your hobby your job?

A really interesting study was released a few weeks ago based on sleep information obtained from FitBits.  They discovered women sleep 25 minutes longer than men, but they are also 40% more likely to have insomnia.  Northerners go to bed 5 minutes earlier than Southerners, on average.  East Coasters go to bed 7 minutes later than West Coasters.  The average American goes to bed at 11:21 pm.

Super interesting, especially because the data was collected by so many people over such a long period of time.  It wasn’t one night in a sleep lab.  It was hundreds of nights at home, just going about your regular life.  Sleeping as you normally sleep.  This is very valuable information.

But, of course, the people were participants in a study without knowing they were participants in a study, unless they read the TOS of the FitBit.  On one hand, no harm no foul because giving up anonymous data about sleep isn’t exactly earth shattering.  On the other hand…

We are having information collected about us every single day.  Every device, every place we go, everything we purchase: it is all being monitored and that data collected and analyzed.  It’s interesting when it gives us anonymous studies like the one above.  It’s unnerving when we think about the fact that there’s a guy named Conor Heneghan who also knows how you sleep if you wear a FitBit.  You’ve invited him into your bedroom without really thinking about how you’ve invited him into your bedroom.

Anyone else a little creeped out?