Prince & Pauper Test

1. I tend to have a sarcastic sense of humor that cuts people down.
2. I like to buy things on sale or at discount department stores.
3. I struggle with feelings of inadequacy.
4. I find myself secretly competing with the people around me.
5. I often look in the mirror.
6. I compare myself to others.
7. I want the "underdog" to win.
8. I believe God favors the underdog.
9. I am uncomfortable around rich and/ or successful people.
10. I tend to build cases against people who seem successful or have power over me.
11. I tell others of significant people I am friends with or important projects that I have worked on or am involved with.
12. I overwork and feel really low when I am not accomplishing something.
13. I am on several committees and volunteer for anything that has a sense of validation, without respect to my own gifts.
14. I am compelled to be friends with the most important person in any organization that I am involved in.
15. I don't like to set goals because when I don't reach them, it makes me feel like I have failed.
16. I repeat myself, dramatize, over emphasize, exaggerate and/or lie during conversations to make my point.
17. I become overly attached in an unhealthy way to anyone who gives me attention or takes an interest in me.
18. I like to give things away, but I am almost embarrassed to receive gifts from people.
19. I spend a lot of time wondering what people think about me.
20. My opinion is easily changed to please others.
21. I tend to have the opposite opinion of the leader in most environments. If they say "black," I almost feel obligated to argue "white."
22. The friends I feel the most comfortable with are usually broken people.
23. When I chose a team to work with me, I chose people who I deem as weaker than myself.
24. I don't like to be around, and tend to reject, people who have a different opinion from mine.
25. I don't just share my opinion, I feel driven to argue with or manipulate people into agreeing with me.
26. When people don't agree with me, I take it personally and tend to think that they have rejected me.
27. I need to be the most important person in the room and/or be in control to be happy.
28. People say I am obsessed with being right.
29. I struggle with fears, especially the fear of rejection and failure.
30. I worry a lot, especially about the future.
31. I feel like something is about to go wrong.
32. I struggle with forgiving people.
33. I am easily offended.
34. I feel that the failures and bad experiences in my life were not my fault.
35. I feel anger and/or rage right below the surface of my being.
36. I feel like people are rushing me when I am talking and/or explaining myself to them.
37. I have felt misunderstood most of my life.
38. Disgruntled and dissatisfied people tend to tell me their problems.
39. My sex drive and/or eating habits seem to be out of control.
40. I sleep more than normal and still find myself tired a lot.

Grading Instructions: Please add the points from each subtotals. Record your score for this section.

1. I enjoy investing in people and seeing them outgrow me.
2. I allow people to have the glory in conversations. Example: A person says,"I have been so busy." I respond, "What have you been doing?" instead of saying,"I have been busy too."
3. I like being around free thinkers and creative people.
4. I like to solve problems with people but not for them.
5. I like to create an environment where people learn to think for themselves.
6. I love myself and sense God's pleasure in me.
7. I feel comfortable around almost everyone.
8. I tend to attract important and successful people.
9. I can eat at nice restaurants, stay in nice places, and have nice things without feeling guilty.
10. I don't do things for the sake of image but only because I personally value them.
11. I enjoy empowering people more than I like having power over people.
12. I love diversity in the people I have relationships with.
13. I tend to choose people to be on my team who have other perspectives and different points of view from my own.
14. I easily rejoice in other people's victories.
15. I give things to people not just because they need them but rather to honor people who deserve it.
16. I am motivated by the vision I have for my life.
17. I am hard to offend.
18. I dream about making a dramatic impact on the world.
19. I expect people to like me.
20. I initiate making contact with people first instead of waiting for them to come to me
21. One of my main purposes in life is to help other people discover and obtain their dreams.
22. I am a self-starter.
23. I bring out the best in people.
24. I think of better ways to do things.
25. I am a good listener. I look people in the eyes when they are talking to me.
26. Joy often overtakes me and I catch myself smiling for no obvious reason.
27. People tend to follow me no matter what I am doing.
28. I like to receive nice things from people.
29. People stop using bad language, stop complaining and/or clean up their act when I am around, even if I haven't required it of them.
30. I spend a lot of time thinking about and being thankful for the good things that have happened.
31. I love people easily and I am patient with them by nature.
32. I feel like I am in control of my natural passions including eating, sleeping, and sex.
33. I enjoy relaxing and find it easy to rest most of the time.
34. I am aware of the Holy Spirit and Jesus talking to me throughout the day.
35. I set goals for the areas of my life where I have responsibility.
36. I have a good idea what my strengths and/or gifts are as well as my weaknesses.
37. When I fail, I take the responsibility for it without blaming others.
38. I love being alive and look forward to the future.
39. I like to take risks and experience new things.
40. I go out of my way to expose myself to the needs of the poor and minister to those broken in heart and spirit. I have compassion for people less fortunate than myself.

Grading instructions: Please add the points from each subtotal in Part 2 only. Record your score.

My score was 127. I agree that my score reflects the Prince and Pauper Test scale accurately. According to the test, I’m 73 points from reaching my royal identity. The information that is missing from this test is the quantification of a unit of measurement. Without defining what constitutes a prince unit, statement 6 in part 2 requires a better and more detailed explanation, “I love myself and sense God’s pleasure in me.” Does “I love myself” mean I should try to hate myself less? Or does it mean I should adore my virtuous inner beauty? More importantly, how do these questions relate to the weight and scale compared to other questions? Ultimately, I was given a single classification number that identified me as not yet a prince but more than a pauper. Thousands of permutations would give the same score, but the character of these semi-princes would be vastly different.

When I emigrated from Vietnam as a boy, I knew I must change. What I did not know was how difficult it would be. My dad took me to Middle School on the first day and checked me in. On the second day, I took the bus but could not tell the bus driver to stop and let me off (I also did not know which stop was my school), so he drove me to the end of his bus route. I learned quickly to adjust, adapt, and reconfigure my identities to straddle the morphing interethnic realities. At home, I was an Asian son, deferring my thoughts on behalf of the family’s needs. At school, I tried to acclimate to the American individualistic ethos, expressed my thoughts and opinions, or risked being sidelined. I did not have the luxury of introversion to ask, “Who am I?”

What the apostle Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:22 spoke profoundly to me, “To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1Cor 9:22). As clay in the Master’s hand, Paul was molded and shaped for God’s purpose irrespective of his perceived identities. I do believe the Holy Spirit confirms with my spirit that I am a child of God, and nothing I do will ever change that (Rom 8:15; 2Thes 2:13-14); however, while I am in this flesh, I don’t have the luxury to search for the affirmation of my identities (in my circumstances, this might have resulted in multiple-personalities disorder). I must share Christ, “Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved” (1Cor 10:33). Jesus condescended from His glory in coming to save us, “Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2Cor 8:9). I have all the riches of heaven through Christ’s inheritance (Phil 4:19). Still, it was by His death that I receive this inheritance (Heb 9:16-17). First, Everyone needs God’s love, and for me, to be loved is to love. Second, the world needs to be reconciled to God through Christ’s ministry of reconciliation (2Cor 5:18). So, I pray that I have the grace to preach the gospel and endeavor to step outside of myself and follow Paul’s exhortation, “Warn them that are unruly, comfort the feebleminded, support the weak, be patient toward all men” (1Thess 5:14).