Thank you so much to Squarespace for being today’s sponsor and for helping me build
my new website, but more on that later.
Everyone here thinks they know you. But they don’t see your insecurities, do they? I
can tell by the way your mouth moves when you speak. You don’t actually like that
Henry guy, it’s so obvious. You can’t wait to get out of that conversation. So,
who are you, really? What makes you tick? Oh, you don’t know? Let’s explore it together
then, I’ll help you understand the complicated, messy being that you are. We’ll reveal it
together. Once we have, you might realize that you want something else, something more,
something where I’m not included anymore. That’s fine. If we go our separate ways,
knowing I left you a little better than when I found you, I’ll be ok with that.
Ok. Yes. Sure. We do like helping, understanding and making sense of people and the world and
all of that. But that’s not what we do all day long, us INFJs. Well, first of all, there’s
millions of us, and we’re hardly all the same. But here’s what a day in my life can
look like, and more so, some of the thoughts that run through my head.
Alright. Here we are. Another day of me trying to figure out how I can make my life purposeful.
I’ll start my morning with a walk in the park. Perhaps there’s a cat stuck in a tree
somewhere that needs rescuing, or perhaps I’ll come across someone who’ll need help
crossing the street or carrying their groceries.
Except those situations always stress me out, because as much as want to give a helping
hand whenever I can, I wouldn’t want to make anyone think they’re helpless or not
capable of taking care of themselves!
I wonder if I’m the one overthinking sometimes. Or is everyone else just under-thinking?
Anyway. It’s summer, so I tend to have my morning coffee out on the balcony. But since
we’re feeling really wild today, I’ll have it on a bench here in the park somewhere,
wallflower style.
As I sit here, I can’t help but wonder about the lives of those passing me.
Like that lady over there, what’s her story? Ten years ago, when she envisioned her life
in the future, is this the picture she painted in her mind?
Couples are especially fun to observe. You can just tell if it’s the very early dating
stages or if one is way more interested than the other or if they’ve been together forever.
And they all bring about different feelings.
Spotting a new couple is exciting, refreshing and fun. You can feel their nerves from miles
away. Spotting the “together forever” couple, the ones who seem to have found the
sweet spot between comfort and butterflies… they bring a sense of safety and hope.
Speaking of dates, you know, the good thing about them is that, even if it turns out to
be not-so-successful, you can always turn it into a counselling session for the person
you’re out with. If they seem to be into it, of course, which oftentimes, people are.
They love talking about themselves when they feel like someone’s actually listening.
Oh boy, the things they will tell you! Makes it even more apparent that the gift of truly
paying attention to someone other than ourselves is rare nowadays. Yet, we seem to need it
more than ever. Interesting creatures, us humans are. It’s
like we’re 8 billion small words walking around in this one big world. Sometimes our
worlds merge, leaving us feeling greater, more fulfilled. And sometimes it’s more
of a crash rather than a merge, leaving us feeling smaller and emptier.
Speaking of worlds, I sometimes wonder what the purpose of mine is? What was I set here
to do? What is my mission? Is there even any at all? Part of me is hoping there is, part
of me is hoping there isn’t. Trying to figure it out is overwhelming, fun, scary and exciting,
all at the same time.
Alright, enough wall-flowering for today. Let’s take a stroll down the streets of
Stockholm.
I know that outwardly I might seem pretty serious, but my mind is very much like a candy
store. It’s colorful and filled with symbols and images. It’s not that serious, believe
it or not. Well, it is serious, but in a playful way. At least I like to think so. Honestly,
the images I get in my head sometimes are absolutely ridiculous. I don’t know where
I get it from. I wish I could paint with my thoughts alone to show you. I wonder if you’d
find them as amusing as I do.
Because my mind is a 24/7 candy store, a lot of thought goes into the things I allow into
my space. This includes the people I let in, too.
It might make me less spontaneous in a way, but it makes me very curious, and it makes
everything that much more interesting to me.
Take art, for example. Any art. A painting let’s say. Don’t you wonder what exactly
was going through the artist’s mind at the time of its creation? Don’t you wonder,
if once the painting was finished, they felt like they got everything they needed to get
out, out? Maybe there wasn’t much thought going into it at all. I wonder.
It’s funny. I get lost in these big questions yet allow myself to worry about the smallest
things. One moment I’m thinking "The universe is huge, and we don't matter” and the next
I’m thinking “I accidentally typed a comma instead of a period at the end of a sentence
in an e-mail and now I can't stop thinking about it."
Now, I know, I know, As INFJs, it might seem like we’re a little too invested in trying
to make sense of everything and everyone all the time. But really, the person we yearn
to understand the most is often ourselves. Our experiences, our interactions, our existence
in this world.
Sounds exhausting, doesn’t it? Yeah. It is sometimes.
I mean, imagine being wired to kind of be like “Here! Let me grab all that emotional
baggage from you real quick although I’m already drowning in my own.”
Now some people might tell us to “just let loose and be in the moment”. That one I’m
not quite sure about. See, if I can’t even pass a bright purple flower, a beautiful building
or a drawing without stopping to admire it, how much more in the moment
can
a person be?