how we change

In high school, I had to take a Myers & Briggs personality test, the one that tests four facets of your personality.  According to their website,  http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/, these are the differences in the categories:

"Favorite world: Do you prefer to focus on the outer world or on your own inner world? This is called Extraversion (E) or Introversion (I).

Information: Do you prefer to focus on the basic information you take in or do you prefer to interpret and add meaning? This is called Sensing (S) or Intuition (N).

Decisions: When making decisions, do you prefer to first look at logic and consistency or first look at the people and special circumstances? This is called Thinking (T) or Feeling (F).

Structure: In dealing with the outside world, do you prefer to get things decided or do you prefer to stay open to new information and options? This is called Judging (J) or Perceiving (P)."

When I was in high school, I was an INFP:

"Idealistic, loyal to their values and to people who are important to them. Want an external life that is congruent with their values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, can be catalysts for implementing ideas. Seek to understand people and to help them fulfill their potential. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened."

I know that a person's M&B personality profile can change over time, and I've been wanting to retest myself for a while now, just out of curiosity.  I just took the test again, 15+ years later, and apparently I have become a: 

"moderately expressed introvert

slightly expressed sensing personality

moderately expressed feeling personality

distinctively expressed judging personality"

otherwise known as an ISFJ:

"Quiet, friendly, responsible, and conscientious. Committed and steady in meeting their obligations. Thorough, painstaking, and accurate. Loyal, considerate, notice and remember specifics about people who are important to them, concerned with how others feel. Strive to create an orderly and harmonious environment at work and at home."

So while I have stayed introverted and feeling, I have become sensing rather than intuitive (but sensing only beats out intuition by 1%!), and judging (67%) instead of perceiving.   And I do think that the second paragraph describes me a little better these days than the first one.  Certainly, it describes me in my work environment these days, being quiet and friendly, steady, painstaking, accurate, and striving for order and harmony. 

However, I also took a test in college in my psych 101 class where we answered a bunch of questions about ourselves, then read a personality description that was generated and rated whether it was exactly like me, kind of like me, or nothing like ,e.  Turns out, every single one of us got the same description, no matter what we answered, and 80% of the class answered either exactly like or kind of like me.  So maybe it's just all in my head.  *grin*