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Friday, November 14, 2008

The Ballads of M: I'm a J. On occasion.



You know what I realized? I'm not very.. arty. I can't write a poem with deep meanings. I can't paint a beautiful picture, rich with subtext. I can't quote famous artists and renaissance - era philosophers. I can't write a small paragraph on infinity or time and space. I can't woo a person with my deep thought and intellect. What does that make me? I've always thought I had the ability to express myself in a very detailed, well - worded and thoughtful manner, but there are times when I think of myself as a machine that only spits out what it's been programmed to read.

I recently did a test during one of my lectures back at University. It was during the only class that I actually enjoy, MGT 204: Legal Environments in Business. The test was about ethics and protocol and was used to define where your approach to life is logical and based on facts or emotional with hasty judgments.

There were 9 questions, each with 2 choices, and you had to pick one. Based on what you picked for those 9 questions, you were awarded either a 'J' grade or a 'C' grade. The questions were interesting and some of them tore at your conscience. Questions like, is it worse to be unfair or partial? Or, if you were ordered to do something by a superior that you knew would hurt a co-worker, would you do it? Or, is it worse to be honest and hurt someone, or lie to them and protect their feelings?

I answered all 9 questions. My score:

J: 8
C: 1

By an overwhelming majority, I was a J. What's a J? A J is a person who acts according to facts and has his moral and ethical priorities well defined. While a J keeps these priorities in mind, he will always look at the greater good or the bigger picture before making a decision. A J is someone who knows that if by doing the right thing, he or she will hurt someone, he or she will accept that eventuality and go ahead with it, prepared to face the consequences of his or her action.

Some of these questions really rattled my conscience and I had to pick carefully. Some of these questions I realized, as I picked the J answer, that it would be emotionally a hard thing to do for me, but that's what needs to be done. Because that's what was right. So I wasn't surprised when it turned out that I was... am.. a J.

However, the one question in which I got a 'C' grade apparently rendered a whole different interpretation. The question was:

What is worse?
  1. Stealing something of value from someone for no reason.
  2. Breaking a promise that you made to a friend.
The moment I saw this question on the screen, I knew right away that I was going to pick the second option. As it turned out, the second option was the 'C' grade.

After the test was over, the professor asked to see me in her office, and that's where she told me that the test was really a test to map out a person's thought patterns. Each answer holds a different interpretation based on the results of all the other answers. When she saw my results, she wanted to talk to me and show me the interpretation. What looked like a simple test, turned out to have a very complex answer matrix.
While the test was barely a page long, the answer matrix was a 380 page book, listing out all possible combinations and their interpretations. According to my professor, while I believe in logic and fairness and have that sense of deciphering a situation into what's right and what's wrong, because I picked this option, it proved that there is an overwhelming part of my subconscious that picks emotionally, but it rarely overpowers my ability to keep my focus. The only time that it will overpower my logical decision making is when I know that I will overtly hurt a person or his or her feelings.

She said the weird thing about my answer key is that it contradicts the very base of a 'J' personality. Someone with this answer key is defined as, 'an individual who can compartmentalize emotions from situations but still allows them to be a minor contributing factor in his decision making process, hereby rendering himself unpredictable on occasion. His understanding of the ethics of a situation is what drives him or her to make a logical decision, yet, have the least ethical or moral collateral damage.'

So I'm a J. Sometimes.

I guess, at the end of it all, while I regret that the artistic side to me and my personality is as lively as a cadaver, I can take solace in the truth that when faced with an issue, at the very least I won't be unfair and emotional. I might not be artistic, but my strength lies in my ability to understand and decipher.

And well, to be quite honest, the one artistic capability that I do have is something that I am very grateful for.


xx


M




_

2 comments:

The High Priestess said...

I was a little surprised. That one question on which you scored a C seemed to be a choice between hurting a friend and hurting "someone".
Friend vs someone and you'd rather hurt the friend? Really? Or am I seeing this the wrong way? Is it the act of stealing for no reason that you think is worse than the act of breaking a promise?
What did you base your decision on? The act of hurting or who you would hurt?

MaliZOMG said...

To me, breaking a promise is one of the worst things that a person could do.

That's it.


M