Things THEY Don't Want You To Know: The Best Title Character in "Calvin & Hobbes."

I bet there are a bazillion personality tests out there. I bet if you googled "personality test," the results would show at least 65,000,000 different hits.

I also bet that I would lose that bet, because I just went and googled "personality test" and found a disappointing 3,610,000 results.

Seeing that number made me realize that I overshot it on the 65 million, and also made me wonder what is the least popular "personality test" according to Google? Which test is number 3,610,000?

I decided to check that out, and that's when I realized that it's very difficult to get to the end of a Google search. I just had to keep clicking on the last little page number there. I know the idea of google is to find the best result, but shouldn't there be a "skip to the end" button? Couldn't one of those people at Google think of that, in between getting free lunches and time to work on their own projects on company time and free massages while at work, an idea that seems a little creepy because I don't think there should ever be a time that I have my shirt off in the office. But maybe that's why I'm not a bazillionaire.

But I did get eventually get to the end, where I found the personality test which Google deems to be least interesting to people who search for a "personality test." The least interesting test is the "College Major Quiz," an About.com quiz that asks which college majors match your personality.

That's a dumb question right off the bat. The only question to ask about college majors is Which college major will require the least amount of work but stand the best chance of getting me into law school? There are, after all, only three kinds of majors in college. One kind is pre-med/engineering type majors; those are for smart people who go on to be doctors or engineers or assistant managers at an aquarium.

The second kind is for everyone who doesn't know what they want to do with their lives, so they go on to law school.

And the final kind of major is for those who know what they want to do, so they major in something that they think will let them do that, but end up working in the Sears photo department instead of whatever it was they set out to do.

So if you're not really motivated to work hard, and don't like Sears, you better hope law school is fun. (It's not.)

Despite the choice of major being irrelevant for anyone, and especially irrelevant for me because I finished school over 10 years ago (and will finish paying for it in roughly 30 years) I took the About.com quiz, though; you could go take, it, too, and compare your answers to mine. I don't know why you'd want to compare your answers to mine, since you don't really know me, but you could.

Here are my answers (I left out some of the questions because that's too much typing.)

Question 1: I would prefer to work alone.

Question 2: Logical (I hate questions about how people see me. They're so dumb. To be clear, the question should be I hope that people see me as...)

On question 3, none of the answers seemed good, so I went with "challenging myths."

On question 4, 5 of the 6 answers were equally good, so I went with "being in control."

On question 5, none of the answers added up to does as little as possible, so I went with helps others understand. But "does as little as possible" should have been a choice.

On queston 6, the answers really seemed to be coming from two entirely different groups. I put "with colors or words." It seemed creative.

Question 7 had only one right answer, and I checked it: to make money. That is the only reason to work.

Question 8 had only one wrong answer, but the best answer was challenge of making money, so I checked that one.

Question 9 asks what I would have been in pioneer days. In any environment where I had to wear wool pants in the summer and hunt for my own dinner, I would last roughly 5 minutes. But I checked "a writer" because they did not offer "quickly deceased" as an option.

Question 10 asks what I'm hooked on and reveals this entire quiz as a shill for a Donald Trump show, apparently. I'm having none of it. I went with comedies. Take that, Trump.

Then, having completed the quiz, it still makes me click one more time to get my results... why the suspense? I click through and see the results are that I am an Enterprising Personality Type. By which I believe they mean I like to make money.

The quiz then said this about me and others who like to make money:

Enterprising people are go-getters. They like to come up with new ideas and start new things. They are very competitive and highly enterprising.

[NOTE: Did I need a quiz to tell me that "Enterprising people are ... highly enterprising?"]

They may be very persuasive talkers and they may be overly aggressive when trying to get their way. Persistence often pays off for enterprising people.

[Note: They "may" be? 10 questions, and you're guessing? Plus, persistence often pays off for everybody.]

Enterprising people like to make money and have nice things.

[NOTE: Setting them apart from absolutely nobody. Except the Unabomber. He liked neither money nor nice things.]

They are often popular, sometimes demanding, and usually motivating. They can argue and debate well.

Possible degree programs: Business, Sales, Marketing, Management, Leadership, Training, Political Science, Economics.

Which hits it kind of on the head, because I did major in Political Science, a major that met my test for what major to choose in college. (little work + leads to law school.)

But really, what did the quiz tell me? Look at those majors. I have a hunch that anyone who picked anything to do with "money" was plugged into Business, Sales, and the like. And Economics, since I understand that has to do with money, too. But what happened to my liking words and colors? And wanting to be a pioneer writer? None of those majors seem to indicate that I would be headed for a Thoreau-esque career as a pioneer writer using a multicolored pen.

And my very first answer was that I prefer to work alone-- tough for a salesman, manager, or leader to do. Who would I lead?

That highlights the problem with personality tests: They don't actually tell you all that much, and they don't help you with life all that much. What good was this test, at all? It purports to show me that I should go into one of those majors -- but it doesn't tell me why, or which of those majors might have the most qualities I'm looking for, or which major has the most important quality. I was asked 10 questions, after all, but it didn't ask me which was most important or how many of those I had to have in a job or career.

What if I wanted a job that works with words and colors and comedy and was willing to take less money to be someone who writes humorous descriptions of art, or whatever job would meet that criteria? What if I wanted more money to be a pioneer? What if working alone is the dealbreaker-- that I won't work in a group no matter how much you pay me? I don't know which of those majors might meet the test for these. I just know that each of these majors is for people who like money and understand the importance of persistence.

In the end, the 'personality' test told me nothing. It helped not at all because I learned nothing about what majors might best suit me and I learned nothing about myself or how to conduct my life.

That's the flaw with all personality tests. All of them try to extract a lot of information from a few quick questions and all of them try to pigeonhole people based on those answers, weighting all of them equally -- so all of them fail, in the end.

All of them, that is, except The Best of Everything's Personality Quiz, which asks only five questions and yet says a lot about you and is very helpful.

My personality test is the Calvin & Hobbes Personality Test, and it speaks volumes about you. I will provide the test for you right now, with my own answers to it so you can see how I did.

Let's begin...

Question 1: Which character, Calvin or Hobbes, is better, and why?

My answer: Calvin. Calvin is incredible. If I were younger, I would say Calvin rocks, and that is in fact what I typed before I remembered that I'm 39 years old and it sounds dumb for me to say something rocks.

Calvin is incredible because of his imagination; what person wouldn't want to live in Calvin's world, as Calvin? In Calvin's world, cardboard boxes are time machines and machines that can transform you into other animals; snowmen come in any number of shapes and sizes, soda bottles are fossils, and it makes perfect sense to strap a pillow to your front and back before jumping off the roof. Calvin is smart and smart-alecky and is fully engaged in both his imaginary world (as, say, Spaceman Spiff, or a child who's the size of a speck) and the real world, where he plugs a piece of lint into his bug collection for school and hopes that the teacher doesn't really pay attention.

Mind you, I would not want to raise Calvin. I would want to be him. Plus, Calvin is (although he doesn't know it) lucky -- take the time he correctly named the capitol of Poland, Krakow, doing so because he was imagining he was Spaceman Spiff and that was the sound his laser cannons made.

Hobbes has his merits. He's cool, good with the ladies, smart, and is the calm voice of reason. He can dance. He's ferocious, as good tigers are.

But Hobbes is not Calvin. Calvin is irrepressible, a quality he maintains no matter how hard people try to repress him. I want to be irrepressible. I want to be as creative and crazy and fun and have as good a time as Calvin.

Now, you go answer question 1 yourself. Ask yourself which is better, Calvin or Hobbes, and why. Once you've got an idea of what your answer is, go on to question 2.

Question 2: Which are you, Calvin Or Hobbes?

My answer: I'm a little of both.

Now, you go answer question 2, and once you've got your answer, move on down to Question 3.

Question 3: Did your answer to Question 2 actually say what you'd rather be as

opposed to what you think you are?

My answer: No, I really think I'm kind of a mixture.

How about you?
Answer question 3, then move on to 4:

Question 4: Re-read your answer to question 3 and this time, be honest: did your answer to Question 2 actually say what you'd rather be as opposed to what you think you are?

My Answer: All right, you got me. It did.

And you, reader? Answer question four and then move on to 5.

Question 5: Then if your answer to Question 2 actually said what you'd rather be as opposed to what you think you are, why don't you just go out and be that person, as best as you can? You don't need a personality test to do that, do you? You know deep down inside the kind of person you want to be, so you can just go do that, can't you?