🛠️ Your tools don’t own you

Book of TREE 2.97

In around AD 55, St Paul wrote a list of seven spiritual gifts in his letter to Christians in Rome. In the 20th century, that list was turned into seven personality types complete with tests to help you discover which one you are. When I did a test as a teenager I was a Prophet. When I did it in my thirties, I was a Servant. A few years after that, someone told me I was definitely a Mercy.

When I take a Meyers Briggs test, I come out with all the letters.

Enneagram? Every number roughly the same.

I’ve never read a horoscope that related meaningfully to my life. (I’m waiting for someone to reply, ‘Jeff, that’s such a scorpio thing to say!’)

None of these frameworks give me meaningful insight into my life. Instead of freeing me to be myself, they box me into categories where I don’t fit. So I ignore them, which is totally fine to do because – fans of these things, look away now – not one of them is based on actual science, not even Meyers Briggs.

Spiritual gifts, Meyers Briggs, Enneagram, astrology – they are tools that help millions of people. If they help you, use them. If they don’t help you, don’t.

Tools are things you use to get stuff done. They aren’t meant to be sacred objects of worship that define your life. Use your tools. Don’t be owned by them.

I’m never not going to share Heartworms on Jools Holland.

Grow slowly
Jeff