Surviving in the world as an Idealist (INFP)
Let's be alone..together.
To begin, I’d like to say, I’m all for unique people and their traits. We’re all different, with our own sets of quirks and characteristics. Which apparently come in clusters. Clusters form more clusters, and, bam! We have personality types. I am not a psychologist and don’t claim to have expertise on the subject. In fact, it was very recently that I realised I fall into the INFP type. (What am I supposed to with that? Well, good to know, either way! Thank you, next?) As I read more on the subject, I realised that they just explained my behaviour and thinking from head to toe.
INFPs and INFJs are the most rare personality types - and I certainly felt this growing up. Well, now we see a breed of new INFPs and INFJs (high five y’all, welcome to the club!) But, I’ve always grown up with socially extroverted individuals and I wondered for most of my existence- what went wrong with me?
Let me tell you why it’s so hard being an INFP:
We’re idealists - Perfection is the word- need I say more? A perfect world doesn’t exist. And we refuse to accept that!
‘Why do bad things happen?’
‘Why do we have wars?’
‘Why are people bad? Karma will get them, but does karma exist? Oh, Karma must exist otherwise - what’s the point?’
‘Is this the right thing to do?’
‘Am I on the right path?’
Above are just few of the countless thoughts that we have. In short, we are obsessed with righteousness. We are like a living-life Nike logo, that is a tick mark. Only our motto is not “Just do it” rather it is “Do it right - or just don’t.” You get the gist.
We’re diplomatic - See, being idealistic, we don’t like to hurt people’s feelings. So what do we do? We will avoid confrontation, conflicts and misunderstandings. Boy, that is the most annoying bit. I want to end conflicts in my home, hell, I want to end conflicts worldwide. Conflicts make us unhappy. Then how on earth am I to survive? God, if you had to do this, at least send me a conflict-neutralising spray machine / tonic / spell / charm / whatever hocus-pocus device you wish. Because, we’re different, right? Yada yada, there are bound to be conflicts!
We’re dreamers (and of perfect things!). We honestly don’t care about name and fame. It’s more like - ‘how many people did I affect today?’ This makes things weird, because our way of setting goals is very different. In fact, most of our goals are too ambitious. I’ve come to understand this, because I hardly tick my yearly to-do lists. Oh yes, we’re ambitious but not very organised (match made in hell)
We love ME time, alone time and closures. Don’t give us these, we’re lost in abyss or dysfunctional for a while. How do I explain to someone that I love hanging out with them, but not always? (And not with other people involved! - Yeah, stranger = danger)
We’re sensitive - enough said.
We set super high standards for ourselves (which I am proud of - but my to-do list is back there laughing at me)
Oh, and we love books, writing (!!!) poetry, also arts and crafts! We’re the creative ones.
Coming to the conclusion - How does one survive as an idealist personality in today’s world - I have little to no clue. I want to do things, but I am my own (self-righteous) enemy. Things affect us more than any other personality type. I honestly feel alone sometimes.
But take this y’all, I’m rare (Google says so!) Honestly, if you ever see someone (hint: introverted and quiet) next time, please send a smile their way. Don’t make them the centre of attention (that’s counterproductive) but just make sure you make them feel included. This goes a long way. I just want to say to fellow INFJs / INFPs, we’re tough cookies (and so are many others) but, this to particularly my club (Can we call it that?) To those who helped me feel included without making it super awkward, I’ll never forget you! (Always remember meee) Oh, how I get carried away.
A Dreamer’s going to dream,
Van