I'm a White.

A few years ago, I remember my mother wanting me to take a personality test. I can't remember exactly why she wanted me to, but I took the test. My answer? You are White. And Yellow.

I didn't learn exactly what those colors meant or remembered it. I passed it off as just another "self-discovery" test that you forget about.

Then, a few years ago, my friend and I retook the test. Her father, from what I remember, was a big believer and even owned the disks explaining the different color personality types. The test is The Color Code, created by Dr. Taylor Hartman. Basically, you are given a set of questions. With each question you are given a list of words and you are supposed to pick out which word defines you best out of the four choices. At the end, you tally your words and find out which color personality you are.

So lo and behold, I received the same result that I had years before. I was a split between White and Yellow.

What do those colors mean, you might ask?

Here's the definition of a White, from Wikipedia (mostly because I can't find it on the actual website of the test):

Whites: The Peacekeepers

"Motivated by Peace, Whites will do almost anything to avoid confrontation and to create tranquility. They have a remarkable ability to understand and draw objective conclusions—they are the voice of reason, and this is their gift to us."

Hmm, sounds interesting, right? It goes on...

"White Strengths: Whites are kind, considerate, patient and accepting. Unlike Blues and Reds, they are not judgmental or critical of others’ actions or behaviors. They simply accept people for who they are: the good, the bad and the ugly. They are tactful, because they don’t want to create confrontation or rock the boat too much. Not rocking the boat is also revealed in Whites through their strength to self-regulate. Controlling their own behavior is a natural strength and this precludes impulsivity. To the rest of us, they offer a clear perspective that is objective and factual. They are excellent listeners, taking what is said sequentially, understanding why it is said, what it is going to take to deal with any problematic situations, and what they can do to help. They simply hear the facts, making no judgments on what is being said. In essence, they are virtually devoid of ego. They are good at constructing thoughts that did not exist before, just from careful listening and taking time to think things through.

White Limitations: Whites don’t commonly share what they are seeing, feeling or understanding. When they have a conflict, they won’t show it. Like a duck, they are paddling violently underwater, but on the surface, they appear calm and comfortable.

Whites can be unwilling to set goals. They are generally very content with the way things are. If you try to force them to set goals, they may reply, “I don’t know where I’m going to be in a month. How can I possibly set goals?” Better yet, they will write down the goals to get you off of their back, but have no intention of following through with them. They resist working at someone else’s pace.

Even though Whites seem ambivalent about most things, they can be very self-deprecating. They are very generous when it comes to accepting others’ limitations, but will be disapproving of themselves. On the flip side, they can also become uncomfortable when receiving public praise and fanfare. People with the DCM of Peace tend to operate on a very logical basis like Reds, but move through life using their ability to reason in a milder manner than Reds. They don’t need to dominate like a Red, but will calmly offer a voice of reason that benefits everyone."

So many points made in those paragraphs make me laugh, because I can see myself so clearly. First off, I am NOT a goal person. I don't think I've actually wrote down a goal, worked, and accomplished it. Sure I make little personal goals, but I don't strive on setting and keeping them.

Second, I am a huge fan of comfort. I'm all about it. If I ever feel awkward in a social situation or feel that I might, I avoid it at all costs. I hate it when my clothes make me uncomfortable. Confrontations=uncomfortableness, hence why I love to avoid them. Basically, anything that makes me uncomfortable and I know that it will, I generally avoid it.

Third, I have to laugh at the "Strengths" part because it makes a White sound as if they aren't human. Trust me, I judge people. I try not to, as I'm sure we all do, but it happens. I'm not sure if I'm a good listener, and so on and so forth.

I'm not going to post the full definition of a yellow, but you can find it here. Although I am largely White and Yellow, as time wears on, I find myself expressing my White habits more and more. I'm not sure if I like it, either.

Here's the conflict: I am opinionated. I don't show it often or tell it to many people, but I sure am. I love having good, truthful, and calm discussions with people about various things just as long as things don't get heated. This puts me in quite the predicament, doesn't it? I only like to share things when I know it won't lead to a confrontation or an uncomfortable situation of some sort. Then at the same time, if I keep things inside, I'm not sure anyone understands me. Hence the trap.

I also am pretty bad at expressing myself vocally, unless I know someone really well. That's where the need for writing and blogging comes in. Truthfully, I think I came to really liking writing so much is because it became a safe, easy way for me to express myself.

But there comes times for certain things that I just need to write to get it out of my system. It is my hopes that in sharing, it will make me less of a White than I want to be. Because I want to be the person who is not always deathly scared of confrontation and I want to learn to get outside of my comfort zone a little. So be warned. Such posts might be coming.

This is all sounding like a journal entry or a commercial, right? If you're wondering why I shared this, it is because I truly think that finding out your color personality will help you understand the reasons why you do certain things. There are so many times when I find myself doing something or read the descriptions of the various personalities and say, "AH! It makes sense!" (If you want to take the test, you can go here. It is free but it will also only give you one color result as opposed to giving you a graph showing you all the colors that make up you. But it's still a good test and it's still free. So go for it!)

One of them is my innate fear of people with a red color personality. Well, not really a fear, but they seem to be the exact opposite of me. I think the reason why my mother wanted me to take the test is because she has quite a lot of red in her and didn't understand how or why I did things. Learning this test also helped me understand opinionated, charged people more for SO many reasons. It helped me better understand the people around me, especially my family and friends.

So maybe blogging will help me get to the place where I want to be. Just maybe though, because I'm not setting any goals on it.

Have you taken the test? What are your colors? Did it help you discover your personality and answer questions that you've always had about yourself?

Animal Rights: Reintroduced.

Can I share something with you? Really, a deep dark secret that I've hidden for awhile and I don't know if I can keep it in any longer.

I'm not sure if I like veganism. I'm not sure if I like vegans.

This distaste has been lingering in my mouth for awhile. It might have started late last year with the release of Jonathan Safran Foer's book "Eating Animals." I haven't read the book, but I was really excited to see it released and get so much mainstream attention. I cheered as I read his personal story about his path to vegetarianism. I cheered as people gave it great reviews.

Then, I came across an extremely critical review by a fellow vegan whom I was friends with on Facebook and following on Twitter. Basically, his article said, "Oh, that's great you're vegetarian. But you are not close to doing enough." I am desperately searching for the article, but I can't find it. (ah ha! I found it.) I was so put off, I sent him a tweet rebuking his nasty commentary, and I rarely tweet at all. I quickly found that I was not the only one giving him grief for doing so. Another female vegan had joined in and was questioning his harsh comments on the book.

Basically, we were both telling him that it was unfair for him to criticize Foer for saying that veganism is hard. Because for him, the critic, it must have been completely easy. He would not rest his case and kept insisting that Foer was a horrible proponent of animal rights. Oh, how foolish of us to think otherwise!

After that incident, I remember thinking, This is ridiculous. I remember questioning if I still wanted to be clumped together in the same group and stereotype of people as this man. After all, we were after the same goal, weren't we? We are all for giving animals their rights, so why were we all pointing fingers?

I wondered if this guy knew anything about progression and the act of trying to make oneself better. Any step towards progression is not black and white, not all or nothing in a heartbeat. There are hurdles, there is questioning. There are struggles and there are times when you feel like an outcast.

Veganism is extreme, I get it. It seems elitist. It seems rude, pushy, and preachy. And for this man to sit and tell everyone else it was going to be the easiest thing in the world was such a joke to me. There were so many times when I felt so guilty for passing up someone's birthday cake, and for turning down the many meals so many people had prepared for me. Then there were the countless times that I felt like such a hassle when someone would go out of their way to make a meatless/dairy-free version of the food that they were making for everyone else. I was always very thankful, but I always felt so bad for making them do that. I remember one instance where I went to visit my brother and he had made chicken and dumpings for my sisters and me. I don't think he was aware of my veganism at the time, but after I finally got up the courage to tell him that I didn't eat meat, he let me pick a can of soup out of his cupboard that I could eat for lunch with his family. The guilt I felt over this was enormous, for SO many reasons. I still feel bad about it to this day.

I would think to myself in such occasions, Oh, why don't you just eat it so you don't offend anyone. But then I would also think, But if you eat this, they are going to think that you are okay with eating it and then it's hypocritical of you to turn it down from someone else.

I should probably be clear here: my choice to eat food free from animal products was relatively easy outside of social situations. Piece of cake, even. And my family was supportive of my choice and did not hassle me about it. I do know, however, that some of my extended family thought I was crazy and wondered what the heck happened to me. Sometimes you can just feel those things without any words being spoken.

And I should probably also be clear about another thing. As of right now, I'm no longer vegan. My transition to Germany has proven a challenging one on my diet. I could tell you a million reasons why, but I think it's pretty self explanatory when you live in a country whose people eat salami for breakfast and who has a dairy section to trump any other food section in their grocery stores. All the foods that I used to eat back home and regularly relied on for sustenance and health are a challenge to find. And that includes basics like good beans and fresh vegetables.

And another thing: my love and passion for animal rights was put on a definite back burner. I stopped listening to my favorite vegetarian podcast. I stopped reading about it constantly. My interest for it died. Interests replaced other interests and soon my lifestyle had changed. I stopped seeing dairy and eggs as the most heinous things and started buying them again. I wondered what I was doing and where I was going. I ate fish a few times.

Some of you might be thinking, Oh suck it up and just eat some meat/dairy/eggs already. It's not that big of a deal. Stop complaining and overanalyzing.

Am I telling myself the same thing? It's hard to say. Sometimes I feel like it. Sometimes, I think that it wouldn't be that big of a deal if I went back to some of my old habits.

Fast forward to tonight. Mark and I are sitting around his computer trying to decide what to watch. We stumble upon Discovery's Shark Week and start watching a few shows. As one ends, Mark asks what other one I would like to watch. "Oh, Saving Sharks," I say.

Instantly, a guy appears on the screen and is talking about his efforts in saving sea turtles. He explains that fishing is contributing to their declining numbers. Then he talks about one guy who goes aboard a longline fishing boat to see how many sea turtles are killed because of the practice. Then it cuts to footage of a shark who got hooked on a longline being hauled up and over the side of the boat. A fisher grabs a long knife and proceeds to hack off one fin. "Oh Mark, please stop it," I say. Mark doesn't. He sits and watches with disgust on his face as the fisherman hacks off the other fin and perhaps another (I closed by eyes for a moment). I open my eyes to see the fisherman shove the helpless animal off the side of the boat. The animal lands back in the ocean completely alive and even more helpless. It can't move and it will die a slow painful death. Although the man explains that the footage of that poor helpless shark actually ignited a movement within Costa Rica to place some of the strictest rules on fishermen, I sat there sick to my stomach.

I had learned in my Oceanography class about the deep and huge impacts of fishing on the oceans of the world. My teacher had taken the time to explain the various problems one day and had also included plenty of pictures. I decided then and there that I would never contribute to that heinous industry again. And yet, here I sat.

I have. I did. I forgot my promise.

The road to discovery and improvement is riddled with bumps and detours. A million times you might ask yourself, Do I know what I'm doing? Can't I go back to being comfortable again?

But then again, where would humans be without progress? Is it good to make a promise to ourselves, to make a commitment and to back out on it or take the easy route? Am I really comfortable when I know I should and could be doing better?

We make promises to ourselves. We strive to be better. We have ethics that we strive to keep and feel disappointed when we let ourselves down.

For that reason, I have to keep pushing through the gray. My promise might have been forgotten, but it's definitely not lost.