Personality Boundaries

December 6, 2011

One of the last nights of my Tibet tour, I had a great conversation with my roommate, Marieke, about our plans after the end of this trip. I don’t remember the exact wording, but paraphrased it went something like this:

Marieke: I really hope I’m able to do some more traveling by myself someday. I feel like you experience so much more solo. Like on buses, if you were with someone, you would just talk to your friend, but solo you talk to all the people sitting around you and learn so much more.

Me: I think the opposite might actually be true for me. I’m not naturally a very good traveler; I don’t pick up language easily, I have no sense of direction, and when I’m lost, I look lost, which tends to get me into trouble. I think there are a lot of things I don’t do solo that I would do if I had a good travel buddy.

Marieke: That is so cool that you recognize that about yourself and say it with such comfort.

Me: What do you mean?

Marieke: Our society values certain personality traits, and sometimes people who don’t have them feel badly about that. Which is silly, because there is nothing wrong with the way they are. I think it’s cool that you know yourself well enough to say you’re not a natural traveler and that you’re happy with that.

A bit later, I realized that Marieke had just put eloquent (and flattering!) words to what made this trip so amazing for me. Spending three months 7,700 miles from my friends and family gave me the space to sit with and manipulate the boundaries of my personality. I discovered many varieties of boundaries, but the two I was most interested in were (1) rigid boundaries that I am much happier if I just accept and (2) malleable boundaries that I always thought were rigid but are not!

(1)  Rigid boundaries are those that are fundamental to my personality and are unlikely to change within my lifetime. Fighting against these boundaries makes me miserable, and I have officially given up the fight. The two best examples in my life are:

·       Food and sunshine have a huge impact on my mood. 90% of the times I am grumpy, if I just eat something it goes away. Why do I fight this so hard? I guess I used to think “Ugh, how sad that my mood is not strong enough to handle being hungry;” but now I think “How awesome that something as cheap and accessible as a granola bar and a spectrum light can keep me smiling!” So, in the spirit of putting this acceptance into practice, I withdrew my grad school application to Illinois and always always always carry a snack with me.

·       I have absolutely no sense of direction. Lonely Planet maps give me just enough information to be dangerous. Sometimes I can keep on the right path if I know where I am on the map to begin with, but I lose my way as soon as I get in a vehicle or stop for a meal. It seems then I always head off in the wrong direction. Or think I went the wrong direction, only to turn around and discover that it was the original direction was correct. So why the heck do I not carry a compass with me?! This is just foolishness. Not having a compass is not going to make me better with maps, it is just going to continue to frustrate me.

(2)  I had to push against those boundaries to conclude they are indeed fixed. But sometimes, happily, if you push against a rigid boundary, it turns out to me malleable! These were the most fun finds for me, when I thought something was true about myself and then it turned out I could change it. I think we just get such a firm self-view sometimes, frequently influenced by the reflection of ourselves we get from loved ones, and some space from that is necessary to investigate whether certain traits are fundamental or not. My favorite new discoveries are:

·       I am not, in fact, a rigid, control freak type. Somehow in the last few months the “ke garne” attitude has entered my bloodstream and I have discovered a flexible, easy-going part of myself I didn’t know existed. This has been made very clear by the two group tours I did recently (Tibet and the Great Wall), where members of my group got incredibly irritated when the plans changed and I was baffled. To me, it was like, “Eh, not the way I thought it would be, but this is still awesome! Why would I let a little change spoil my fun?!” I think getting upset about a change in plans is more likely to spoil a trip than the change in plans itself.

·       My approach of eating whatever was put in front of me this trip has been very beneficial. I can put aside my picky eating when I need to! I’m likely to stick with my favorite foods at home still, but I know for sure that eating weird things will not kill me.

·       My place on the introvert/extrovert scale I think is more flexible than Meyers-Briggs would have me believe. After this trip, I genuinely believe that I can be energized by being alone OR being with people. The trick, I think, is adopting the right attitude about it and seeing the benefit of having both in your life.

Part of me wishes I had been more deliberate about this boundary testing. It definitely happened without prompting, but could I learn more if I intentionally pushed some of them? What would happen if I did something involving children in the spring? Would this be just bad for the kids and bad for me, or might I learn I have some semblance of a nurturing side deep down? Hmmm…