Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

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TopHatFox
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Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by TopHatFox »

I think I've realized that I have a hard time listening to advice because it's so rare to find people that have the same issues as me. Maybe it's more effective to just ask people that are more like me than not, to see what works for them.

All of that is to say, fellow Highly-Sensitive-People INFJs:

1. What makes you feel like your life is on track or that you're contributing to the world?
2. What jobs have you tried that you hated, and which jobs have you tried that you liked?
3. Do you care about getting to a goal financial target, or are you more concerned with other aspects of your life?

---------

If you like the Big Five better, it'd be:

1. Openness: high
2. Conscientiousness: high
3. Extroversion: low
4. Agreeableness: high
5. Neuroticism: high

daylen
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by daylen »

A call out to unicorns in unicorn land. Isn't about time to make your own path and meaning? Who knows how to better utilize your scarce time on earth better than you? :P

TopHatFox
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by TopHatFox »

Yeah, pretty much. I'm literally afraid I'll end up homeless if I make my own path daylen...interviewing people on long-trails or something. It'd be fun and meaningful in the moment, but...horrifying long-term. Maybe some other person like me has found a less radical path...

daylen
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by daylen »

I suspect that your scope of what a path can be is too narrow (Ni). The antidote is to select a moderate yet flexible path that allows for expansion/modification over time. The core would be something simple and conservative with respect to social norms (Fe), but it can be altered indefinitely in a way that you cannot yet foresee (Ti). The rest will follow (Se).

TopHatFox
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by TopHatFox »

Can you say that in a concrete way? : )

daylen
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by daylen »

I will say it in three ways if it can help.

1. Currently, you see a bunch of points in a plane with few defining characteristics (Ni conversion with Ti encoding). Selecting a point that is challenging to describe may allow you to make it your own. This point should be respected by the majority of others so that you receive reliable, positive feedback straight away. Overtime, you will realize how this point is actually a window into all possible paths (expansion of Ti frame). Your inferior nature will improvise (Se) the previously projected path (Ni) accordingly.

2. Imagine a hiker that has a map of several trails. You have the names and some details of each trail (career handbook). Starting on a trail that is not completely mapped will be a bit confusing at first, and it will require you to pay attention to land marks. Overtime, you will gain a better understanding of what is off-trail. This will allow you to make your own maps. Eventually, you will be able to guide others on their own personal trail however unique they may be.

3. When entering into college, a student does not yet know what to study. At first they may see a description of what each major is and what careers each can lead to. By selecting a major shared by a diverse set of people who have gone on to do numerous different things, the student is initially lost in an ambiguous sea of many swarming schools of fish. The student latches onto a versatile yet inclusive school of fish that accepts them. With the help of the school, the student better understands the whole sea and eventually decides to form their own school using the navigation skills they have acquired. This is a chaotic process at first, but their unrecognized ability to adapt to minor details wins in the end by forming a highly stable school of sea-wondering creatures.

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Ego
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by Ego »

TopHatFox wrote:
Fri Oct 04, 2019 4:24 am
Maybe it's more effective to just ask people that are more like me than not, to see what works for them.

All of that is to say, fellow Highly-Sensitive-People INFJs:

If you like the Big Five better, it'd be:

1. Openness: high
2. Conscientiousness: high
3. Extroversion: low
4. Agreeableness: high
5. Neuroticism: high
What if this is all just a story you are constantly telling yourself?

What if, rather than exclusively rearranging your entire life to fit the story you also rearranged the story to fit your life?

Is it possible that rearranging the story is a practicable, improvable skill?

IlliniDave
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by IlliniDave »

Ego wrote:
Fri Oct 04, 2019 7:32 am
...

What if, rather than exclusively rearranging your entire life to fit the story you also rearranged the story to fit your life?
+1

7Wannabe5
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by 7Wannabe5 »

You seem very extroverted (concerned with social sphere) to me. Although, of course, it is difficult to tell from writing voice.

TopHatFox
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by TopHatFox »

Ego wrote:
Fri Oct 04, 2019 7:32 am
What if this is all just a story you are constantly telling yourself?

What if, rather than exclusively rearranging your entire life to fit the story you also rearranged the story to fit your life?

Is it possible that rearranging the story is a practicable, improvable skill?
Hm, I don’t think so. I tried being someone else when I went into finance and sales, and that went to hell. I really don’t want to do that again. My personality has basically been the same since I was a kid. Maybe there are some things I could get better at, but if it’s something I’m doing 40+ hours a week, I’ll likely need it to fit.

take2
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by take2 »

daylen wrote:
Fri Oct 04, 2019 5:19 am
In other words, life experience.

There’s nothing wrong with looking to others’ successes (or failures) but copying them isn’t going to make you happy. Also, you aren’t defined by your MBTI. It’s a helpful tool to understand yourself and others but it’s not the key to the universe.

You don’t need to have your whole life figured out, you don’t need to have a certain net worth number, you don’t need to be doing something meaningful every day.

For what it’s worth I’ve found that at different stages in life I’ve been concerned/focused on different things. These ranged from music, dancing, investing, construction, traveling, frugality, sex, exercising, gardening, cooking, etc. All continue to be part of my life in some way now but there was a time when I was almost exclusively focused on one of those, or even a further sub part of one of those. I found meaning in whatever I was focused on because it interested me.

Clarice
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by Clarice »

Do NOT get married to this straitjacket of yours - INFJ. Read The Complete Enneagram 27 Paths to Greater Self-Knowledge by Beatrice Chesnut - great, GREAT book about how we are saddled in childhood with a certain personality and how the arc of life is to lose it, to become an oak tree from an acorn.

TopHatFox
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by TopHatFox »

It's kinda the only semblance of career direction I have right now ':S

Without using Myers Briggs as a at least a cursory guide, I'm back to blind job hopping...

@daylen, #2 makes the most sense

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Ego
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by Ego »

Exhibit A how Myers-Briggs encourages learned helplessness?

daylen
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by daylen »

@Ego Modern society comes with bumpers. A complex society requires humans to be bootstrapped into a stable position within it. Genetic predisposition determines how effortful this process can be for each individual. Path dependence goes back as far as you can look. Ignoring your past (biological bootstrap program developed over billions of years) just produces spiraling. If you think you do not need help, then it you do not know enough about your origin. Before you can even comprehend what is outside of your box you must have a map of where it would end without such an understanding.

An exotic plant entering into an established garden will likely not survive without some initial support. The gardeners can either provide that support (within certain limits) or ignore the misfit with a sink or swim attitude.

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Ego
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by Ego »

@daylen, Neuroplasticity. Humans are adaptable. We are not computers. We can change.

We become the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves.

Has anyone read Leonard Mlodinow's new book Elastic?

https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/book ... 101970164/
Last edited by Ego on Fri Oct 04, 2019 9:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

daylen
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by daylen »

@Ego I am well aware of neuroplasticity. It doesn't make any sense without innate constraints, though. A rubber band is flexible to the extent that it doesn't break.

We have had this conversation numerous times where I tell you that it is not the complete picture but you never offer a valid counterpoint. You just repeat the slogan, "Humans are adaptable". Sort of ironic, isn't?

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Ego
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by Ego »

I listen. I just believe you are wrong.

Yes, of course there are constraints. I believe you are wrong because I have changed to an extent that you believe is not possible.

TopHatFox
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by TopHatFox »

You're just one person though, and probably had to expend a lot of energy to change to something else.

Even Socrates said to know yourself, and the Stoics say to follow our nature. Well, irrelevant of the Myerrs Briggs, my nature and experience says I hate working with spreadsheets everyday--and get overwhelmed by tiny details-- and prefer working with people instead. Why should I give what my body is telling me the middle-finger and go back to spreadsheets, aside from society valuing spreadsheets and details more than people?

daylen
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Re: Call Out to HSP INFJs: what makes you feel content/useful?

Post by daylen »

What beliefs do I have that you disagree with?

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