There are two types of people in the world: those who are fascinated by personality frameworks and those who aren’t. I belong to the first camp. As someone who gets excited about discussing MBTI personalities, I am always a bit saddened by my peers who don’t summon the same level of enthusiasm. In fact, I feel like they are pouring cold water on my red-hot passion.

Thus sets the context for the reason why I bought this book many years ago. Gretchen Rubin, upon pondering why her friend can’t make herself go running, connected the dots between her varied experiences and came out with her personality framework that divides people into four tendencies, namely Upholders, Questioners, Obligers and Rebels. These individuals are divided into how gung-ho they are about fulfilling inner and outer expectations.

I was really excited when I read this the first time, marveling at Gretchen’s ability to conceptualise something neat and original and possibly groundbreaking. However, I didn’t finish the book. Now, as I gave it a second go, I remembered why. Gretchen’s strength as a writer lies in her relating candidly her honest, sometimes exasperating encounters with her family members. However, this book involves her sharing the insights she gleaned from other people’s stories - which weakens the writing as you don’t have enough stimulus to connect with them. What’s more, she covers a lot of ground in each chapter, unravelling the perspectives of spouses, parents, bosses and healthcare professionals when dealing with people of each tendency. By spreading herself thin, she comes across as touch-and-go cursory. Her ideas also come across as repetitive.

Maybe it’s the fact that I identify myself as a Rebel through her quiz. That’s why I am having a hard time reading her didactic style of writing. Nonetheless, I actually finished this book today. More importantly, because I was primed to think about personality types, I came out with the bright idea of directing my two best spellers to pair up with a weak speller each and prod the latter to learn to spell high-voltage vocabulary words. These spellers are not the most diligent people in my class, but because I peg them as Obligers, I am pretty confident that this buddy tutoring thing will take off. So, suffice it to say that this book has effected some change in me.

Additionally, I must confess that I quite enjoyed the motherhood statements associated with each Tendency. Some highlights about Rebels: Freedom is their discipline; they want freedom to do things their own way; and Rebels ask, “is this the person I want to be?” Bull’s eye, bull’s eye and bull’s eye.

Obviously, I am not a hardcore Rebel (otherwise how could I have stayed in the educational system for sooooo long?) Nonetheless, the Four Tendencies framework does explain why one of my Reporting Officers once remarked that I am a galloping stallion that may need to be tamed. LOL.