This past summer, my therapist sent me a link to a personality test. She told me that it would be good to see where I fell on the spectrum of personality types.
So, I took the test.
I got the results.
And then it clicked… but not before it fell apart.
~
During the session after my therapist asked me to take the personality test, she asked, “Did you take it? Do you feel like it gave you some good insight into your personality?”
I kindly said back, “Yes, I took the test, but to be honest, it didn’t really give me any insight. It validated what I already know, and with that validation comes a big pill I have to swallow.”
“What do you mean by that?” she asked.
“Well, for starters, it told me that I have the rarest personality type there is, which I feel like I’ve always known even if I haven’t “known” it. But it also listed people who have the same personality type as I do, which, truthfully, scared the shit out of me.”
“Who did it list?”
“Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, and Mother Teresa just to name a few.”
She replied, “Oh, don’t worry, those are just examples.”
~
I’m not worried about the shoes I have to fill because I am well aware I’ll never be MLK or Nelson Mandela or Mother Teresa. They’ve already made their marks, and no matter how hard I try, I’ll never be them.
Let the record also state that I don’t want to be them. I want to be me. Today, tomorrow, and all the days ahead. I want to be exactly who I was born to grow into, and that’s precisely where the crippling worry comes into play.
I’m not sure what everyone else feels or thinks about the trajectory of their own lives. To be quite honest, I don’t really care. If I did, I would never have the capability of living out my own truth because I would be so focused on everyone else, which is tiring and honestly pretty lame.
But when you let go of the need to care about what other people are doing and thinking and pursuing, you simultaneously choose yourself. And there is no scarier, more liberating choice in the world than staring at the bricks you have piled up next to your feet and deciding that if you’re gonna lay down these bricks one-by-one than you’re hiking up your sleeves, getting down on your hands and knees, and putting the yellow brick road to shame, if it’s the last thing you do.
I am very well aware that my potential lies within my own two hands. That the path I carve out for myself begins in my mind, and any bricks I fail to lay are a direct result of how much effort I am willing to put in.
I am not scared in the slightest about living up to anyone else’s legacy. I am only terrified of never living up to my own.
At this point, if you’re thinking, “If you know that your path is in your own hands, than why are you so scared when you know you have full control?”
It is at this time I ask we take a moment of silence together and excuse what’s about to come out of my mouth.
Drum roll, please… 🥁
Because I know I have no one— not a single soul— to blame if I don’t live out my destiny, but me.
~
Please know that I am very well aware I have put a lot of *probably* unnecessary pressure on myself to live a big life. It’s not that learning I have the same personality type as MLK sent me into a spiral.
It’s that I have always felt and known that my mission is not an ordinary one. Some of my earliest memories, when I was only three or four years old, are of complete consciousness. Moments when I should have been blissfully ignorant to the mortality and finality of life, but instead, I was deep in the thorough of contemplation.
There is a classic, timeless song by the name of, “Broccoli”, that is quoted saying, “I was 5 or 6 years old when I had told myself ok you're special,” and the first time I ever heard those lyrics I felt like someone had taken a page out of my childhood scrap book and turned it into a rap.
I told myself the same thing when I was a very young girl. Why? I have no idea. It was just something I felt internally and also something that’s never faded.
So, now, at 25 years old, I have all this life in front of me and all this life right now at my feet, and I’m looking at the 5 year old in me and thanking her for knowing very early on that things were not gonna be ordinary for us. I’m also looking at my bricks and then looking at myself in the mirror, jabbing my finger into my chest, and telling the girl who’s looking back that it’s time.
Between owning what I’ve been given, worrying up the yin-yang, and strapping in for all the bumps up ahead, I’m still here. I’m still choosing my own path because if there’s anything I’ve learned over the last few years it’s that your voice will quiver, your legs will wobble, your hands will shake, and you’ll be scared out of your mind, but when you’re certain about something, all that matters is that you keep going. No matter what your voice sounds like or how feeble your limbs are. You just continue.
I’m hoping that anyone who resonates with this post knows that it’s okay to be nervous or scared or worried. I know firsthand how it feels.
And if you aren’t scared, you’re probably not aiming high enough, I’m just gonna say it. If the bar is set low, you have nothing to lose. If the bar is set high, it’s a whole other story.
Know that being scared and being confident can exist together. Not knowing what the path looks like and having a vision for the end can and should exist together. Being nervous about where you are or where you’re going doesn’t mean you’re not secure within yourself. If you’re here doing the work, than you don’t care if fear invades your body— you’re gonna do it anyway.
To the people doing the work, you got this. Oh, and while I’m here, you will live up to your legacy. You will.
P.S. Click here to take the same personality test I did!
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