I have decided I am a type A person in no uncertain terms. I’ve thought that for a while ever since I was younger. I recently was reading an article by the Huffington Post about things that bother type A people. This only further confirmed my self-diagnosis. If you don’t want to read the article, I’ll summarize it here.
- (Others) Being Late: I enjoy punctuality and if people ask to meet me somewhere at some time, I will be there and probably early. Case in point, I had to meet my friend at university to help print her thesis. She was going to be there at 8:50 which I deemed difficult before, but got myself up and there before then! She wasn’t there, but she was half an hour later, so around 9:20.
- Losing Gracefully: It’s extremely hard for me to just take things ‘as a game’. It’s partly why I don’t enjoy playing high risk games or games which people take seriously. I can’t. So I’ve developed a mentality where I can play games and enjoy them. It’s not only with games, also races or competitions.
- Go With the Flow: this is extremely hard for me. I have been trying more and more since I’ve grown older and it’s harder and harder. I find myself having less patience, more things I want to do. Sometimes I wonder, why try to make myself do this?
- Untidy/Unruly Inbox: My inbox cannot have more than 50 emails in it. The less emails the better I feel and I have a strict filing system and process for going through emails.
- Enjoying the Journey: This just compares being goal oriented and having the mentality of enjoying the journey. I have many goals, and my lack of goals now is particularly stressful. But I’ve been trying to enjoy the journey and the moment.
- Leaving the Office Before the Work is Completed: I don’t work in an office, but I do resent it when people ‘check out’ for the day and I am left cleaning the kitchen or picking laundry up off the floor in my apartment. So I can only imagine what it would be like in an office.
- A Mental To Do List: I have so many, it’s pretty stressful, but I can’t turn them off.
- Messy Desks: Dislike them, but there can be organized chaos and that is okay.
- Sitting Still: I can sit still, that’s fine.
- Unorganized Closet: Again, can be organize chaos, but at some point it needs to be fixed. I also think my definition of organized chaos is very different than others.
- “free time”: even in my non university now time I have to do lists everyday for normal things, like writing this blog post
- Clearing the Mind: incredibly hard but I am working on this slowly
- And another one that says you should embrace the type A
In short, it can be very anxiety prone and stressful to be the type A person I am. But also trying to ‘fix’ it is also very stressful and hard to do. I’ve tried to find a balance where I except the things I am and can’t change, and work on the things I can, when I can.