Charging my Duracells

At this point in life I think everyone has taken a Meyers-Briggs personality test, so I will refrain from explaining it. Whenever professors talked about it in college (during my short run as a Psych major... because I soon found out that "Psych" meant "psychology" and not "psychic") I was always interested in the differences between introverts and extroverts. To me, that's such a fascinating thing.

In its simplest form, the extravert is the loud person in the middle of the party, while the introvert is the wall-flower back in the corner (not Jacob Dylan). But that's a very situational, and relative, view. Given different circumstances, they can easily switch places (make it a D&D party and all bets are off).

No, what really interests me is something else that my professor told me. He said that the easiest way to determine someone's place on the I/E scale is to see how they "recharge their batteries". An extreme extrovert relaxes by surrounding themselves with people and excitement, and the extreme introvert locks themselves away in their bedroom so they can be alone with their thoughts and Dragon Ball Z toys (I'm allowed to make jokes because I'm often an introvert).

Last summer I spent a week at the beach. I didn't drive anywhere. I hardly wore shoes. I didn't move anywhere fast. It was probably the most relaxed I've ever felt in my entire life. By the end of the week I had absolutely no stress running through my mind.

Then, last week I went to Las Vegas. For 3 days I did nothing but "go go go". Always moving, drinking, gambling, etc. I was a complete mess by the time I came home (but in a good way).

So here's the interesting part. After the beach, I hated going back to work. I didn't want to get up. I didn't want to enter the "rat race" again. All I wanted to do was lay around.

Conversely, after Las Vegas, I was refreshed and ready to head back to work. (after taking an extra day to sleep A LOT).

Maybe it's because I pushed myself so far in Vegas that a normal workday is easy to handle. Or perhaps the beach lowered my stress levels so much that returning to work was a huge shock to the system.

Or maybe...just maybe... I have an extrovert hiding in me somewhere...

And now I pose the question to my audience: How do you recharge your batteries? And how do you feel when you head back to work?