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The mole sisters were thinking.
“Who are we?”
“Good question,” they said.
–Roslyn Schwartz, The Mole Sisters and the Question

Human beings are complicated. We don’t fit easily into buckets, literal or metaphorical. And yet, there’s something appealing about saying “I’m part of this group over here. Here’s my little pigeon-hole. This is where I belong.”

I can still remember my very first Seventeen magazine. I was thirteen. “What’s Your Style?” read the headline. I examined the photos carefully. Punk just looked ugly to me. Glam was way too sexy for a teenager who was hoping her boobs would stop at an A-cup. As the least athletic person I knew (I once found an honest-to-goodness four leafed clover while playing outfield in a baseball game), I definitely wasn’t Sporty. So, the answer: I was Preppy. I felt the warm glow of belonging as I studied Jennifer Connoly’s walking shorts, headband, and ankle socks. I had found my first bucket.

As I grew up, I found more buckets. Magazine quizzes, self-help books, psychological tests, all offering to give me insight into my true self after answering a few questions. If you answered B to 4 or more questions, you’re a…. ‘nother bucket dweller.

None of the buckets helped me that much. Sometimes they gave me some insight into one aspect of myself or another, but they rarely gave me the soul-knowledge I was looking for. I always found myself wondering about my bucket mates: how similar were we, really?

Style Statement is different. There are no multiple choice questions, no scoring key. Just a pile of thoughtful, intriguing questions, some of which stopped me in my tracks. There are no easy answers, and no buckets. Yes, there are some suggested words in the back, but there are literally thousands of possible combination of Foundation and Creative Edge words. And if their words don’t speak to you, Carrie and Danielle suggest you find your own.

Style Statement isn’t about putting you in a bucket. The point is not to assign you to a group and then tell you about the group. The point is to help you name two pieces of your own self, two pieces that may or may not exist in harmony, two pieces that affect what you do and how you feel about it, two pieces that need to be honored in order to live an authentic life.

My two parts are called Creative and Joy. Are there other Creative Joys out there? I don’t really care, because I’m sure Creative Joy means something slightly different to them than it does to me. Which is exactly as it should be. Carrie and Danielle’s definition of Creative in the back of the book was helpful, but only as a confirmation of what I already knew, what I had uncovered in answering their questions and sifting through my answers.

It’s a lovely world when you’re not sitting in a bucket.

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