Why You Don’t Need to Have Discipline

Have you ever wondered why you aren’t able to make it to appointments on time? Are deadlines your worst enemy? Do you feel guilty when you don’t accomplish your goals?

Well, friends, I have an answer to the staged rhetorical questions that you aren’t actually asking: it’s not your fault. Oh, no. You’ve walked right into a cultural conspiracy and didn’t even know it.

In the past, society has put forth things like discipline and responsibility as character traits that all people should strive for. This, of course, is highly unreasonable. Some people’s personalities just are not suited for these in-the-box traits. Parents, teachers, and employers want certain results from those underneath them, and since those traits are most likely to get good results, they encourage those outdated values. This sociological survival-of-the-fittest is more like mind control than character formation and must be opposed.

Pretending to be Myers-Briggs, Part 4

“Judging” and “Perceiving” are really vague titles that don’t give you an accurate picture of what they’re supposed to mean. Judgment has a negative connotation, like some old lady waving a crooked finger at you and squinting in old-fashioned condemnation. No one is really sure what perceiving means, unless they think of Inigo Montoya in The Princess Bride closing his eyes and letting his sword guide him to the right spot.

(What, no one else thought of that in connection with the word “perception?” Okay, fine. I’m weird.)

These labels are probably the least helpful out of the bunch. I would have renamed them “Structured” and “Unstructured,” but S is already used and it doesn’t sound quite as official. Also, I am not, in fact, Myers-Briggs.

Shame.

I am a firm P, meaning that I’m very flexible and slightly disorganized. Right now, I 100% guarantee that my sister is reading this and going, “Slightly? Are you kidding me? Have you seen her desk?” This is because Erika is a firm J. Whenever she can, she’ll grid things up, check them off, and arrange them in alphabetical order.

National Starting a Novel Month

PROMINENT AND OBNOXIOUS DISCLAIMER: I am not against the National Novel Writing Month project. I think it’s awesome. I think it’s exactly what a lot of people need to motivate them. I think that it results in great writing, a greener environment, and puppies, rainbows, hearts, and unicorns. Nothing but love for NaNoWriMo.

That said, I have declared this November National There’s-No-Way-On-Earth-I’m-Writing-A-Novel Month. This is mostly because of my lack of faith in my ability to balance an intense writing project with my junior year of college, which would be something like trying to juggle flamethrowers and chainsaws at the same time.

But I am starting a novel. And, unless I find that the plot is totally unredeemable, I will finish it.