Insights From Personality Types

“There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self.”

Ernest Hemingway

Many years ago, I took one of those many dreaded tests that psychiatrists love to a disturbing degree. As usual, I didn’t know what it was for or what the point of it was. I live to make shrinks happy, so I gritted my teeth and did it. I am such a good boy!

I get the results, and with much pride, he says, “You are an INFJ, it is quite rare, but I am not surprised.”

Me: “Um okay, if you knew, why did I waste my time taking your precious test?” *loudest sigh in history* He rattled off things that I knew about.

“Hey, You are an introvert!”

“Gee thanks doc, I am glad I am not paying for this.”

Apparently, I need a lot of downtime also. *Where would I be without being told that*?

Despite being an introvert, I can come off as an extrovert in certain circumstances. *Yup, that is me, some of my sisters enjoy pointing that out to me*.

I was also told that I can be very passionate about people and things I care about and when I make a goal I am very determined to reach it. Okay, yeah that is more or less me.

I was also told that mental issues are prevalent in my personality type and can overly affect me. Sure, that is fairly accurate but I am sure that an extrovert with similar issues will struggle as much as I do. I also learned that people that hurt me end up getting ignored by me sooner or later.

Okay, but doesn’t everyone ignore toxic people?

I really didn’t see the point of taking a test to confirm what I had observed in me, so I ignored and forgot about it until recently. In fact, I forgot about it so quickly I am not sure the above conversation is entirely accurate. It could have just happened in my head. I am unfailingly polite after all. More likely, I was given all the information on a sheet of paper but that is not as good of a story about giving my shrink a minor amount of grief. I seriously did not see any value in it. Lately, I have been reading up on the topic since I am working hard to get myself in shape to be seen in polite society.

INFJ is part of the Meyers-Briggs Personality Indicator. There are 4 attribute pairs where you can be all or mostly one of them, making 16 allegedly distinct personalities. I am very skeptical that all of humanity can fit in one of 16 boxes. I believe we are much more diverse in our personalities than that. There is much written about Meyers-Briggs, and I could write for the next 2 years and not cover it all. So, if you are interested in learning more. I will be kind and Google it for you. Or you can use your preferred search engine. I like Start Page for search results and privacy.

INFJ stands for Introversion iNtuition, Feeling, and Judging. Right off the bat, I have issues with this. The opposite of intuition is sensing, and the opposite of feeling is thinking. The computer scientist in me says that sensing and thinking match better with how my mind works intellectually.

Those imply, among other things, that I would pay attention to details and be more liable to use logic. This is my main objection. I fit bits and pieces of all 8 personality categories. Of course, it does cover it by having secondary and tertiary attributes, but that makes it messy. As a programmer, I like clean designs, so this makes me nerd-rage just a little.

Why can’t people be simple? I am extraordinarily simple.

The more I think about that, I realize that my personal life does use more intuition and feeling to get by. Getting by might be an optimistic description of my life.

I do pay attention to details. That trait was ground into me in the military, but that is a habit, not a personality trait that I possess. It does not come naturally.

I realized that I rarely use logic in my personal life, and I am pretty good at figuring people and their motivations out. Two attributes sell me on the possibility that I am an INFJ. The first clue is that I have felt out of place for as long as I can remember. It is like I do not belong here. Also, my mood can change very quickly depending on the mood of people around me or whom I am conversing with, even across 10 time zones. I can feel their mood, and it imprints on me. I am not a fan of that as it can mess up important things like my sleep.

“Make the most of yourself….for that is all there is of you.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An annoying thing is that many articles say that INFJ’s display A, B, C, …, Z personality attributes. If you want to get along with them, you better do this, and that and certainly never ever do these certain things or face their quiet wrath. Are people that prickly and unable to adapt? I would like to think that I am not.

Even more annoying are the comments. 1000 comments of various permutations of, “Yes! That is me, are you spying on me?” *groan*

I see people using their personality type to excuse poor behavior, much like I occasionally see people use anxiety to do the same. Maybe it is the INFJ-style perfectionist in me to not accept that in myself or others. None of us are perfect, and we all screw up, but these kinds of excuses are too easy and shift responsibility.

“Muh mental illness” has never been an acceptable excuse when I don’t behave very well. How can someone who absolutely hates himself hold himself to a higher standard than normal people?

Self-improvement is one of my things. Even if it happens so slowly no one can notice it. As Popeye says “I yam what I yam” and a particularly smart and kind redheaded Russian told me that I cannot change who I am. That is probably true. Still, I am stubborn and try to do things even when I am told I cannot and should not. Especially when I am told I can not. I probably need to change more than is possible to be an acceptable person. I am not so much of a perfectionist that I would try to do the impossible, maybe. Perhaps I can be an improved me? I think anyone who knows me or has just read all my drivel here would agree that I need to improve myself.

If this can not be done, what is the point of cataloging personality types and the entire psychology and self-help industry?

Well, other than generating as much money as possible.

“Understanding our personalities makes it significantly easier to change the things within our grasp. This is the whole point of studying various frameworks! Some people resist personality frameworks because they say such frameworks put them in a box. I’ve found that understanding my personality helps me step out of the box I’m trapped in. When I understand myself, I can get out of my own way.”

Anne Bogel, Reading People: How Seeing the World through the Lens of Personality Changes Everything

The non-INFJ in me says, why bother?

I am kind to everyone I interact with, and that hasn’t helped me much. I have been told that I am more than I give myself credit for, and a few people have said they see me very differently than I see myself.

They never enumerate those differences.

How is that possible when the end result matches my self-image?

They all meant it in positive ways, but I can count in decades instead of years, months, or days since I have had friends in real life. Clearly, I am getting in my own way, maybe. I am not sure. Is self-doubt my friend or enemy? Minds have been known to be very protective of themselves. If I have a wrong self-image is it possible to accurately evaluate myself? If my self-image is correct, even if it is negative, is it possible to accurately self-evaluate and correct things? Are the reasons I might think poorly yet accurately about myself wrong?

There is always a creature in my mind that is pulling me down and that might just be where I belong.

Still, there are some bits of wisdom to be gleaned from these articles. What is lacking from them are ways to mitigate personality quirks. Like mental illness symptoms, there is value in realizing what personality quirks can cause issues and how to minimize them as much as possible. I wish I knew exactly how my personality flaws trip me up daily. Those flaws also become magnified when mixed with my anxiety, depression, and paranoia. I am working on methods that I can use to do just that and will report if I have something workable.

What I have learned so far is that there is some value in understanding my generic personality type.

Knowing why I do something or act a certain way is the key in honestly evaluating myself and try to change what needs to be changed if it can be. There are various online tests, and I would recommend that everyone takes several of them. I am not sure how valuable it is to take just one of them, but if you can get a cluster of data you might have a good starting point.

If I could remember the name of the psychiatrist, I would write him a letter of apology for thinking all those sarcastic thoughts.