Happiness Quiz: How Well Do You Know Yourself?

Every Wednesday is Tip Day (or Quiz Day).
This Wednesday: Quiz – How well do you know yourself? It's surprisingly difficult.

In doing my happiness project, I’ve been repeatedly struck by how hard it is to follow the first of my Personal Commandments, to “Be Gretchen.” Why is it so difficult just to accept my own nature?

Two of my favorite Secrets of Adulthood remind me to Be Gretchen: “Just because something is fun for someone else, doesn’t mean it’s fun for you – and vice versa” and “You can choose what you do, but you can’t choose what you like to do.”

I’ve noticed that people often assume that everyone enjoys the same activities that they enjoy, because they believe those activities are inherently enjoyable. For example, when I commented on how well a friend had arranged some flowers, she explained, “I needed a part-time job during college, so of course I tried to get a job at a flower shop.”

“Why did you try to work at a flower shop?” I asked, puzzled.

“Well, everyone loves working with flowers,” she answered matter-of-factly.

Well, actually, nope. I would never try to get a job in a flower shop. In college, I always got temping jobs, because I could work on my own writing projects while looking productive. (Speaking of not recognizing your true nature, I missed this obvious clue that I wanted to be a writer.)

People also assume that they in fact do enjoy what they think they should enjoy – e.g., they enjoy going to the theater, because going to the theater is a fun thing to do. Nope! Not true. There are so many “fun” things that I don’t enjoy one bit, like skiing, drinking wine, going to concerts, eating pasta, shopping. And I love to do many things that other people dread doing – cleaning out closets, for example. I beg my friends to let me help them clean out their closets.

My friend Michael Melcher wrote an outstanding (and quite funny) book called The Creative Lawyer; he also has a terrific blog. The book is aimed at helping lawyers find more job satisfaction – whether within law or outside of law – but it’s also a valuable resource for anyone trying to understand himself or herself better.

Here’s a quiz, lightly adapted from The Creative Lawyer, to help you figure out your interests. Not what you wish interested you, but what actually interests you.

1. What part of the newspaper do you read first?

2. What are three books you’ve read in the past year?

3. As a child, what did you do in your free time?

4. What’s a goal that has been on your list for a few years?

5. What do you actually do with your free time? [This is perhaps the most helpful question. I finally switched careers from law to writing when it dawned on me that I was always writing books in my free time.]

6. What types of activities energize you?

7. What famous people intrigue you?

You need to pay close attention to yourself. The better you understand your true likes and dislikes, the better able you are to make decisions – in work and leisure – that will make you happy. It’s not possible to build a happy life, filled with enthusiasm and engagement, based on the way that you wish you were. For better or worse, we’re all stuck with ourselves.

As Thomas Merton noted in his diary, “Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already am. That I will never fulfill my obligation to surpass myself unless I first accept myself, and if I accept myself fully in the right way, I will already have surpassed myself.”

Have you found any good ways to understand yourself better?

*
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If you'd like to join as a super-fan (to participate in the pre-launch or to volunteer to help in other ways), click here or email me at gretchenrubin1 [at] gmail [dot com], and I'll add your name. (Use the usual email format -- that weirdness is to thwart spammers.) Just write "super-fan" in the subject line.

Comments

[Julia]

I'm actually pretty aware of what I like and don't like -- as a child, my family was always different because we didn't own a TV, and we were very religious to a strict Protestant sect... You'd be surprised how these two facts create a lot of differences with elementary peers... So that said, I also know full well how I am JUDGED for what I enjoy doing, and I've learned to test others for open-mindedness and non-judgementalism (is that a word?) when I meet them to figure out what I should and should not disclose... We Americans are a judgemental bunch!! Try telling someone you're having problems in your marriage, you'll get a bunch of unsolicited advice and none of it will have ANYTHING to do with YOUR marriage for the most part! (Same thing with parenting!)

In America, we are very influenced by what we percieve to be common ideas that others hold... Most of this comes from TV, but also friends, childhood experience, and the things we've learned in school -- and sometimes even what we've learned from religion... Funny thing is that some of these ideas are so narrow, we know we wouldn't fit into them (or we don't REALIZE we don't fit into them), but we hold others to this standard, both publicly and privately... Pot and kettle both being black and calling each other names, anybody??

[Positively Present]

These are great questions. The first one made me really think because I always read the Kids section of The Washington Post first...since I'm 25, that probably says something about me, huh? I'm going to copy these questions into a Word document and think more about coming up with answers for them...Thanks for posting them! :)

[TruDee]

Excellent post - being the only female in the family, my guys always thought it crazy that i didn't want to go play basketball or go fishing, and yet they had no interest whatsoever in quilting with me! Go figure!
And by the way, you can come clean my closets anytime! In all honesty, i don't mind closet cleaning once i get started, but it's all in my mindset, and it seems that's what you're saying here, too. If i would look at some "chores" as pleasant, instead of automatically assuming it's drudgery, i wouldn't procrastinate doing them, and perhaps even realize i enjoy it.

[Vi]

Great post! In fact, I was just thinking about this issue yesterday. I was wondering how I could try to be more of myself. What does "Be myself" mean? How do I achieve that? And I realized that it starts with knowing youself. The questions you posed are great starters.

As a suggestion, I would add that it helps to experiment. It helps to go shopping and try clothes that you might not usually try. Maybe you'll like them. Experiment with your life a little bit. Try different foods. Maybe you'll like them. I think lack of exposure to different things and experiences hinders people from discovering themselves. I used to never eat Mexican food, because when I was a child my family never did. One day, I tried it, and I realized that I do like it; I was simply never exposed to it before.

[Andrea]

Thank you for this post! Good to know that I don't have to like bungee jumping or sports events and the questions - wow. I obviously don't care about local news, politics, business, stock market, sport as much as I care about the "Art", "People" and "World News" pages. It is a relief to realize that even if I try to like the other pages it will never work out and I have more time to bundle my energies in areas I care about.

[Christopher]

I find more about myself when talking to others. Having an open, constructive conversation with those close to you can do wonders both for you and your relationship.

[Writer Dad]

Wonderful questions, Gretchen. I copied and pasted them into my journal for my pages tonight. Thanks!

[holly]

I enjoy doing the "know yourself" tests like Myers Briggs and the tests in "Now discover your strengths." It really helps me to look at something that is supposed to reflect me and see if it reveals a truth -- or not, about who I am.

[Rose]

Hallelujah! Hallelujah! You're so right: just because someone else enjoys something doesn't mean I have to, too. The company I was recently laid off from had an alcohol-centric culture, with beer and wine stocked in the fridge for people to drink in the afternoon, and regular happy hours. I don't drink and would get a lot of pressure for not joining in the happy hours. It was difficult sometimes, because I was left out of the social clique of the business, but I had to "Be Rose." :-D

[Kelly]

Excellent questions, and perfectly timed for me. I'm going through some "stuff" right now and these are exactly the kinds of things I need to be thinking about.

[Sophia]

Very good timing for me as well. I've been working for 21 years toward a career goal and now that I'm just one year away from reaching that goal, I'm wondering whether I have the stomach to continue for that one last year. It seems odd to me that I've been working so hard because I'm good at my job, but never thought to ask whether I'm enjoying myself. I fantasize that I'll be happier at work after achieving the career milestone, but why would the next 21 years be significantly different from the last 21, which have been quite a struggle?

[Meream]

I will write these questions down and answer them on a quiet time with myself. Thanks!

[Hsiaoshuang]

Thanks for your happiness insight. It's true we get involved in a job or activity, not because we like / enjoy doing it, but because "everybody" says it's such a "nice" thing to do, like manning a flower shop. A flower shop is a pretty sight, especially with a pretty girl inside; but I suspect many of these pretty flower shopgirls are just bored stiff with the work.

And somewhat perversely the people who love to handle and arrange flowers are usually much older women who have long since lost their first bloom of youth!

By the way, you remark that, "You can choose what you do, but you can't choose what you like to do."

Gretchen, I think you got it mixed up. It should read:

You can't choose what you do (e.g. working in a dreary job you don't like, but you need the money, and there are no other more congenial jobs available), but you can certainly choose what you like to do.

You have a choice to spend your leisure time, effort and money in only the activities you enjoy doing, not what you see other people enjoyed doing.

I heard from some young girls who said after they leave school, they want to be salesgirls in a cosmetic and make-up kiosk in a glitzy, brand-name department store. But when I talked to the actual girls at the kiosk selling Chanel or Revlon or what nots, these girls complained of aching feet (having to stand for hours) and having to put up with old, grouchy, wrinkled women customers who have the cash to buy expensive beauty products.

Life is not a pretty sight for those pretty girls selling beauty products to ugly customers!

[Beth]

Interesting questions. Need more time to think about the answers tho'. I often find that the thing that I most enjoyed and spent a lot of time on last year, is not at all interesting to me this year. For instance, for a few years I wanted to learn to speak French. Started lessons end of 2007 and was thrilled; spent hours going over what we'd done in class, doing the homework, watching the French channel on t.v. and taking out French movies from the video library. Then middle of 2008, found that I couldn't be bothered going over the lesson and had to force myself to do the homework. Beginning of this year decided that class wasn't for me, I would just find someone to speak with. Did that for a few months, and now don't feel like doing that either. So there goes my "speak French goal". I envy people who have a passion and I'm trying to find mine, but so far the things that grab me don't go on grabbing me over time. Any ideas?

[Era]

Very interesting post and the concept of this blog has me captivated as well. I'm new to your site and would like a little more information on what a super fan is.

Nice to meet you.

If I may say something to Beth: You remind me of myself. I like lots of different experiences and actually enjoy the transition of focusing on different things over time. Even in my blog, I tend to write about different things. There are common threads here and there.

I have learned a lot about myself from writing, considering what I write about and even the things I avoid writing about.

I find the journey to be fun. The destination is just icing on the cake.

I blog at erasundar.wordpress.com

[Lexi]

I'm with Beth and Era -- I have ever-changing interests. I know the core things that I love and don't love, but I'm also the type of person who gets incredibly bored if I'm not always evolving.

The problem is in this economy, I feel a bit stuck in my job and also stuck not having enough money to chase my desires. It can be very frustrating, but I'm trying to find ways to work around it.

I don't enjoy eating pasta either, by the way :) But I do enjoy making lists and checking things off them. Go figure!

[Paolo Terni]

Maybe to answer question number 5 ("what do you actually do with your free time?") we could use a little help from our friends.

Some research in psychology (See "strangers to ourselves", by Wilson) indicates that other people that know us can be more accurate than we are in answering that question.
What we think we do with our free time might be very different from what we actually do.

My experience as a coach bears out that observation: when people actually start recording their activities, they are almost always very surprised! The gap between what they think they do and what they actually do can be very wide.

I really enjoyed questions number 1, 2 and 7!
They are about small things that can lead to big insights.

Great post, great list, great website / project!!
Thanks for the thought-provoking posts,
ciao from Italy (Milano)!

[MJ]

Very true - though a person might have to spend a while not being true to herself before she gets to the right job (to use your example - to be a lawyer who reads the books and arts section of the paper first).

As with any guidance and tests, though, I'm always afraid when I see them used as Rules, since Rules, like MBTI testing, are so handy for use by employers against employees and interviewees(to keep anyone "different" away). I had an alarming (to me) conversation wtih an acquaintance in the nonprofit community a while ago. He insisted that business people don't like the arts, because they read the business section first, and people who read the arts section first cannot be business people (apparently they must make $25,000/year in a job with no chance of advancement). How frighteningly narrow and doctrinaire - these are great questions and tests, but not when they are used to box people in (or fence them out). Now I question how well he's doing his nonprofit work, since he is so narrow minded....

[Karen]

Thanks for another thought provoking article. Here is my 2 cents.

1-Before you know you, you have to know other people. You can't know yourself in a vacuum. You know yourself against the backdrop of other people and a range of various experiences. That's how you know where you are on the map. For example, in order to decide whether you are generous or greedy you need to meet enough people with that trait and study them closely to decide for yourself. Same way you decide someone is tall. It's as measured against other people. It comes from experience and observation and recording of your observations.

2-It takes a bit of risk to be yourself. I am one of those people who is too much me and I have often felt it came at a price of being taken for the oddball or standing out in a crowd. It's not the best feeling in the world. In order to fit in, you have to match others a bit. Do you want to fit in or be you? There is a balance here.

3-Once you get to know yourself, it doesn't mean you have to stay that way. Once you decide you are a great talker, it doesn't mean you get to talk non-stop indefinitely forever on end. It just means that's your strong point and may be you need to balance with more listening skills. There are no perfect personalities. It is up to you to decide when you can draw on your strengths and when you need to develop your weaknesses. If you are a great painter, it doesn't mean you have to keep drawing for the rest of your days. It might mean you can balance it with learning to play the piano for a change.

4-So the question is not who you are. The question is who do you want to be? At the end it doesn't matter. The joy is in the experience of painting or playing the piano or being generous or greedy. It's all for your benefit to improve yourself. The universe is here for you to experience you - just to watch your own reaction.

[Valerie]

It's amazing when all of your answers point in the same direction. I know what I like and have finally told those people who would like to plan my life differently that I know who I am and I like what that means.

[khia]

im 21 i spent my whole life planning on university and then a masters program, this summer after being put on a waiting list i was not accepted to the masters program after all. now im living in a city with very few friends and no one very close to me, except my boyfriend who i've only been seeing for a year, which for me is a short time to get to kno someone and im trying to find work but i just cant get out of this rut...and i understand the article; its saying what everyone else says "just decide what you like and focus on that" i understand the priniple but for the life of me i have no idea what i like... is this odd, in my alone time i do nothing, i go on the internet job searching or blindly seeking the answer to my new but fairly constant unhappiness...and everyone says i already kno the key to my own happiness but seriously i have no idea what i like...not even simple things like shows on tv or genres of books, i read and watch whats recommened to me and can see the good and bad in it all, but whatever my tastes are i must have lost them...any ideas out there how to retreive them???

[Stuart]

I know it's unsolicited but, Dear Khia you have to consider that maybe you are already complete and just waiting for society to catch up... or maybe (seems redundant, yes) your waiting for you to catch up!

A deeper commitment to oneself is what I feel we should all have for our happiness. It took Gretchen (how long) a while, to see what made her happy; writing.

If you are truly that deep, in that every day you seek to find an answer as to who you are.. maybe, just maybe, your happiness is already stumbled upon/found. Do you identify yourself by your job, your friends, your loved ones?

Although I apologize for this greatly unsolicited and possibly forward comment on my part, I would suggest that you (as I have done) look toward my every day activities and see where my/your own myopia has failed me/you...

Am I happy with my mate?
Am I happy with my job?
Am I just being unhappy because I haven't learned to take control of my own happiness?
Did I give the keys of happiness in my day to someone else? I didn't mean to!

These may be my questions but, in some small (albeit vain) part of me I like to think.. "I can't be a virgin to the failures of my life and happiness no more than Adam, Eve, Socrates, Plato.

You must have truly found that which makes you unhappy... so, look across the river of fate and try to swim to the other side.

As for me, I found a rickety old bridge and dared to cross to the opposite side of the river "Fate". Only to find that some of my fondest ideals of life (which I had beckoned every night in prayer) were already enroute to the side I left.

We will never be truly 100% happy but, after all, isn't happiness a state of enjoyable balance?