I'm a sucker for chasing down fascinating threads mentioned in books, which is how I ended up taking the VIA Character Survey. It says the following things about my top 5 strengths (in rank order, strongest at top):
- Love of learning: You love learning new things, whether in a
class or on your own. You have always loved school, reading, and
museums-anywhere and everywhere there is an opportunity to learn. - Creativity, ingenuity, and originality: Thinking of new
ways to do things is a crucial part of who you are. You are never
content with doing something the conventional way if a better way is
possible. - Curiosity and interest in the world: You are curious about
everything. You are always asking questions, and you find all subjects
and topics fascinating. You like exploration and discovery. - Zest, enthusiasm, and energy: Regardless of what you do,
you approach it with excitement and energy. You never do anything
halfway or halfheartedly. For you, life is an adventure. - Appreciation of beauty and excellence: You notice and
appreciate beauty, excellence, and/or skilled performance in all domains
of life, from nature to art to mathematics to science to everyday
experience.
It's not a bad picture, actually. My boyfriend will occasionally do an imitation of the energetic version of me, which goes something like: "Hi! I'm a Mel! I'm excited! It's a crazy, crazy world. Teach me teach me teach me?" That seems to mostly capture the first four; the fifth is harder to observe, but it's much of what goes through my mind in quieter moments when I'm held rapt by music or art or an elegant mental turn of phrase, or just speculate about the grand complexity of the universe.
Topic shift to data correlation. When I write, I'm either confused/frustrated and actively moving at high velocity to figure out how to improve the situation, or happier in general than when I'm not writing (or rather, "my blog activity seems to correlate with an upwardly trending mood.") I don't know whether that's because I write when
I'm happy, or because writing makes me happy. How could I test this? By
forcing myself to write when I'm sad and depressed, or otherwise tending towards lethargy, and seeing if that has any noticeable effect.
Also, I'm considering getting a fitbit. OpenYou has been doing some fascinating stuff with libfitbit lately, but I should probably explore the use of my phone for these sorts of things before spending more money on another gadget. Personal datatracking is awfully useful, though.