When we were children, we naturally divided people into “good” and “bad”.

Parents and teachers kept teaching us the same division: “good child” and “bad child”. When a behavior matched their expectations — eating on time, staying quiet, being obedient — they called it good. When it did not, they called it bad.

Then we entered society, and society divided people again: “normal” and “weird”. If you did not socialize or network, you were weird. If you found joy in thinking rather than in eating, drinking and playing, you were weird. If your rhythm of life did not match the one expected of you, you were weird.

For a long time we were confined by these labels. The world kept asking us to be “good children” and “normal people”.

The 16-type model can play a different role.

It tells you that you are not a “bad child”; you are simply one kind of child among many.

You are not a “weirdo”; you are simply different from some people, and there are many others like you. You are not an anomaly.

In an environment built on black-and-white thinking, the 16-type model can be liberating.

But the model is still a label.

People are rich and specific. A concrete person cannot be expressed by a label; even if we exhausted every word available, we could not capture the fullness of one person.

The 16-type model should be treated as a tool for breaking black-and-white thinking. People are not black and white, and they are not exhausted by 16 categories either.

Some people become fixated on pinning down their type, worry that the result is not accurate enough, take the test again and again, and use type descriptions to direct their behavior. To me, that is putting the cart before the horse.

Use the model as a springboard. We should move toward a richer, more specific version of ourselves.

This is also why the platform is called SoulStation, with the slogan “May your soul find rest, so you can journey further.”