Four Letter Words
Years ago, a friend of mine asked me to take this personality test. He was and still is a strong believer in measuring and quantifying things. And I think he encouraged me to take this test so that he could firmly classify all of his friends in convenient camps. The test he had us take? Well, that was none other than the Myers-Briggs.
To be brief, Myers Briggs breaks everybody down in to 16 neat and tidy types. That’s not to say that there are only 16 types of people in the world, but it uses each of those types to describe a person’s outlook and thinking style in life. The 16 types come from dichotomies in 4 areas; Introversion/Extroversion, Intuiting/Sensing, Feeling/Thinking, Judging/Perceiving. I won’t go into the specifics of all of these words. Instead, I’ll point to wikipedia for a more detailed explanation.
Anyways, I took the test. Which you can do by click on Myers Briggs up there. Or here.
My results were very interesting. I’m an INFJ. With an “I” so strong you’d think that I only come out of the house on holidays. Apparently, INFJ happens to be one of the most rare types a person can be. A whopping 1.5% of the population ends up testing that way. I like that fact. I think a lot of individuals, especially the more extroverted types have a need or desire to be like other people. I have long since gotten over the illusion that I am or even should be like everybody else on the planet.
INFJ’s are an interesting bunch. We like causes. We like to fix things. And we are quite determined to do so. The common good seems to matter to an INFJ and often our views are completely shaped by the need to contribute to that. INFJ’s are apparently good planners. Often, they are perfectionists. I know I can be anyways.
If you know an INFJ, here’s a few things that you should keep in mind.
We like knowing we make a difference. So, if we help you, thank us. While we’ll love to help you get that problem fixed, don’t take advantage of us. We’ll figure it out soon enough and it only makes us want to avoid being around you. Feel free to ask us about things. We have a pretty strong bullshit detector. We’re also good at evaluating people and motives. There are some people who think that the INFJ type is psychic. I don’t necessarily believe in that, but I will note that we are extremely perceptive of situations, often sub-consciously.
Things not to ask your INFJ to do:
We’re not good at watching things come to harm. So, pest extermination, picking fights or even military service are not first options for a INFJ. Don’t get me wrong,we’ll do any of those things if we find the cause worthy enough. But, those are definitely out of our comfort zones. INFJ’s are probably not your standard 9-5′ers. We may work those hours if we’re forced to, but our home life and our works lives often bleed over into each other. Likewise, I don’t think INFJ’s are status quo sort of people. We’ll want to change things. We’ll see a solution to an obvious (to us) problem and we’ll want to fix it. The best thing to do when this happens is to get out of our ways. You’ll probably like the outcome, but you may not like the process. And we probably won’t appreciate you getting in our way.
-Proud to be an INFJ
