where culture meets personality type
Jack Hagley makes infographics, and this one based on numbers from 100people.org is pretty cool:
Makes me wonder how we’re all connected, sharing this big blue ball called Planet Earth, but most of all grateful I’m in a home with internet access and a glass of clean water within reach. [Read more...]
One 0f the many changes expats have to face when moving abroad is new food.
What if you don’t speak the language and can’t read the labels? Every shopping trip can turn into an hellish adventure!
We’ve covered tips on how to handle food abroad before, so let’s just look at what a week of groceries looks like in Germany: [Read more...]
1975 Cover
I’m 38 this year. I’m only telling you that so you can appreciate that I remember watching the first season of “The Real World” on MTV in 1992. Growing up with 3 state-sponsored German channels, getting cable in my teens virtually blew the lid off my home-town. It expanded my horizon. Not always in a good way, but still.
Reality TV as a concept was in its infancy; The Truman Show wouldn’t come out until 1998. I didn’t know many people who had a personal computer, and the world-wide web may have been invented, but I didn’t know anything about it. Even emailing and using SAP during my apprenticeship years is a blur of black screen with green or white blinking cursors, having to hit the tab key just so to get into the correct field. How I hated doing travel expense reports. I didn’t get my first hotmail account until 1997 or 1998 at uni. I resisted purchasing my first mobile phone until 1999, at which point Google had 8 employees and was just moving out of their garage.
OK – you get it, I’m old. And a late-bloomer when it comes to techy stuff. Nuff said.
Paul Miller
So when I read Paul Miller’s account of going offline for a whole year, I felt for the guy. He’s 27, tech writer for The Verge, Christian, and his essays of trying to find the real him in the real world seem so honest and vulnerable, it’s thought-provoking. I started wondering about his generation, and what a difference growing up 10 years later can make.
He unplugged to smell the roses. Tired of the on-and-on-ness of it all. Email, data, websites, projects… and he found that life is on-and-on-ness everywhere, even offline.
Paul says he’s been online since he was 12, and eventually it’s how he made his living. He was ready for a break. At first, he did everything he thought he was going to do – read books, go the park, ride bikes, play frisbee. But then he stopped and replaced time on the internet with playing videogames or in front of the TV. That’s not surprising, because everything new gets old and loses its appeal eventually. It takes work and conscious effort to keep relationships alive and hobbies or work appealing.
His self-reflection is raw, and his “offline” articles are revealing. The one answering the ubiquitous question “but dude, what do you do about porn?” has over 1,000 comments. He learned his problems go deeper than figuring out what’s real and what’s virtual, and that they manifest themselves differently on- and offline. I think figuring out life and all its components is an ongoing process, and that we’re all a little confused and depressed at 27. Paul is trying to move beyond the narrative and actually live his life. Meet a girl. Start a family. He says he’ll spend next year more focused on other people, and I wish him joy. Flexing your extraverted Feeling muscles will be challenging and hopefully rewarding. I’m tempted to speculate about his preferences for introversion and how he might harness and nurture his gifts and practice going out to realize his dreams, but in the video he’s talking about his therapist so I know he’s getting some support already.
I can see how we’re defining our identities today by how many followers we have or likes our posts get. We have to reconcile who we are between how we see ourselves and how our profiles get interpreted online. I’ve written about making our lives less virtual and more “real” before, but I’m no longer sure the two are separate for those of us who are plugged in. Yes, wondering about leaving the web is a very first-world kind of problem, but if that’s what’s moving us then it’s worth exploring.
I am grateful that I had about 18 years of uninterrupted bike-rides, climbing trees, playing outside, weekly trips to the library, hanging out with friends, and swimming in dodgy lakes. I have memories of what life was like before the internet, and perhaps that’s what’s helping me unplug from time to time. Still, while I don’t see value in reality TV today, I wouldn’t want to go back to 3 state-sponsored channels either.
found on annecarolinedrake.com
Having been an expat for over 15 years now, I have missed countless birthdays, wedding anniversaries, engagements, childbirths, christenings, even the funeral of my grandfather. My husband has strong preferences for introversion, so we don’t have any couple-friends to go out and share experiences or rituals with. I admit, it’s easy to forget how strong and useful the bonds of social structure can be.
Thankfully, I have found an Ersatz-family in my Toastmasters club and a handful of local friends. Three of whom are pregnant right now, so ask me again in 6 months how I feel about baby showers. Still, with my own preferences for Extraversion and all, I couldn’t live without them. The research I’m going to share with you now hasn’t included specifics on personality types, yet it is suggesting that human connections indeed provide health benefits to introverts and extraverts alike.
1. Janelle Jones and Jolanda Jetten found that “multiple group memberships promote the resilience in the face of physical challenges“.
They found that belonging to multiple groups was associated with faster heart rate recovery for novice bobsleigh, luge, and skeleton athletes (Study 1) and that the salience of a greater number of group memberships led to greater endurance on a cold-pressor task (Study 2). Importantly, these effects were unchanged when controlling for individual differences in responses to the challenge, challenge perceptions, and group membership importance. The authors argue that multiple group memberships reflect an important psychological resource from which individuals draw strength when faced with life challenges and speculate as to the mechanisms underlying this effect.
In other words, next time one of your friends or club members is sick, consider the impact a simple phone call or signed card can have on their get-well-being.
2. Barbara Fredrickson cites research in this New York Times Op Ed piece that also suggests empathic connections positively influence our health.
When you share a smile or laugh with someone face to face, a discernible synchrony emerges between you, as your gestures and biochemistries, even your respective neural firings, come to mirror each other. It’s micro-moments like these, in which a wave of good feeling rolls through two brains and bodies at once, that build your capacity to empathize as well as to improve your health. If you don’t regularly exercise this capacity, it withers. Lucky for us, connecting with others does good and feels good, and opportunities to do so abound.
Her studies showed that plasticity extends beyond our brain’s neurons. “Lovingkindness”, or the art of nurturing supportive and empathic connections, is a skill that can be learned. And as it is learned, it increases your vagal tone (heart-brain connection), allowing your body to better regulate internal processes like glucose levels or even immune system responses. Which in turn feeds back into your capacity for loving kindness.
In short, the more attuned to others you become, the healthier you become, and vice versa.
The photo above shows Liz Gilbert and Ketut, and she describes her experiences with this medicine man in her book, Eat Pray Love. He encouraged her to meditate, and to learn to smile with her liver. Is that something you think you could do right now? Close your eyes, count to five heartbeats in your next five deep inhalations and exhalations, and smile. You’ll feel better, and hey – it’s healthy. 
Are you able to articulate yourself effectively?
Are there any bottlenecks in your business?
Or perhaps you may be feeling cramped, like a genie would be?
Freud interpreted bottles, or any form of receptacle, really, as a symbol for female genitalia.
But they may also represent social aspects like celebrating (especially if there are multiple bottles), while empty or broken bottles can warn of disappointment and loss.
Here's where I share thoughts and tips on cross-cultural living and personality type from my German ENFJ perspective. My motto is:
No BS, just love and science.
Reader discretion is advised, there may be some swearing. I love comments, so feel free to add yours.
Also, are you an expat? Do you know your MBTI® Type? Please help me with my research!
Cheers, 
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