“Are you an introvert or an extrovert?” a friend once asked me. I instinctively rebelled at being pigeonholed—especially since the extreme of these attitudes can take the form of either an avoidance of social contacts or a kind of greedy gregariousness. I told him that I treasured the ability to enjoy my own company as well as a desire to be a good friend. 

My rejection of labels and their extremes also applies to political alignments. For what mental quality remains to forward our own and the world’s progress when two people stand in opposite corners and neither budges—when neither listens to or honors the other’s reasoning and desires? 

In the Preface of her transformative book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “The time for thinkers has come” (p. vii). I trust I will always want to have the independence of mind that turns to God for answers to every decision, from the least to the most important.