Blogging Challenge | Personality Traits I am Proud Of

3 Personality Traits I am Proud Of

"The most important kind of freedom is to be what you really are. You trade in your reality for a role. You trade in your sense for an act. You give up your ability to feel, and in exchange, put on a mask. There can't be any large-scale revolution until there's a personal revolution, on an individual level. It's got to happen inside first."

~Jim MORRISON

Somehow the internet can't help but be fascinated by different personality types, but more so the INFJ personality type according to Myers-Briggs type indicator formulated by the mother-daughter duo, Isabel and Katherine Briggs, a simple search results in millions of records within seconds.

It is considered among the rarest personality with less than 2% of the population, I think the statistics being tallied from data collected in United States.

After taking couple of personality tests back in early 2017, the results always tallied to that type, but despite that sense of somehow being understood I still didn't feel so at peace with being an INFJ.

I scored the internet reading a myriad of articles on this glorified personality type, joined some subreddits, followed couple of IG accounts, just did all I could to try and gather as much info as I could about this personality, but the thing about many of the internet sources they just provided rather shallow insights, and despite being all over the place, many of the sources just miss the point, or rather they don't think they are but they actually do.

Books lessened my dilemma, I started with Gifts Differing, book by Isabel Briggs Myers and Peter B. Myers.

By the time I got started on Please Understand Me II, by David Keirsey I was at a much better place with a better grasp of what it actually meant to be an INFJ, and that sort of helped make peace with I am, also giving me a better starting point towards better understanding of other personality types.

My problem with the glorified version of the internet INFJ is that all those articles make it sound so easy and cooler being an INFJ but in reality as anyone who has done the tests and gotten that as their type can attest to, it is not a walk in the park. It is actually more of a spiral through an abyss sometimes with no hope of ever finding a way out, it is just complicated...

Nonetheless, here are traits about myself that I am very proud of.

A knack for Creativity

As a result of having Introverted Intuition as my primary function, my world revolves ideas, possibilities and scenarios, this happens so natural and it is very easy for me to drift from the present and just be lost somewhere, my mom always had a hard time when I was a kid trying to caution me from day dreaming, but still it happened.

So for me creativity is natural and despite its downsides I am very much proud of it, and am always working to feed it a myriad sorts of inspiration, and learning better ways to harness it. Otto Kroeger in his book Type Talk, best summarizes it:

"The INFJs’ driving force is iNtuition (N), which is directed inward (I), generating a never-ending stream of possibilities and ideas. In fact, the more the INFJ introverts, the more malleable and open-ended life can seem. But the external world has a way of interfering with this flow of inspirations and creativity because INFJs feel called upon to render service to humanity (F) in a very orderly and demanding way (J)."

~Otto Kroeger

Understanding Others and Really Seeing them.

For me it has always been very easy to comprehend where someone is actually coming from. Getting to understand who someone really is behind the facade one has put up also happens rather easily.

I have learned how to be careful and somehow conceal that trait in me to avoid people taking advantage and just pouring all their life on me without having necessary having asked for them to, it is draining and sometimes their emotions mess up with my emotions and sometimes leave me lost without even the understanding of why actually I am lost.

An Insatiable Hunger for Knowledge

My wandering mind somehow needs huge amounts of information to muse over at random times. This has the effect of me always looking to learn more about things that really fascinate me. Most of the time I feel like there is not enough time to even cover what I really wanna know, but despite the race with time, my brain munches on whatever I manage to find.

Hopefully in a few years I will be done with undergrad and have more freedom to pursue what my heart really desires. I will probably go on to take my postgrad, despite not being so into my current school system, there are some places with somewhat better school systems, which will be better guides in pursuit of my passions, of course while still maintaining a sense of authenticity and individuality and not merely turning into a sheep.

It is not always roses and sunshine though...

INFJs are not without their shortcomings. For example, they have a tendency to become severely depressed when their ideals go unfulfilled. It is amazing how quickly the strength of the INFJs’ rich inner imagination can turn to discouragement when others don’t readily join or support their cause. What was inspiration now spirals ever inward toward self-punishment and deep-seated feelings of failure. Guilt becomes overriding and depression abounds. In such cases the INFJ tends to distort reality and to bury himself or herself in a barrage of despair, ending in “No one gives a damn. How foolish of me to have thought otherwise.

~Otto Kroeger

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