So...I was going through some of my old writing, and I found a little page I wrote on 4/17/2008. I'd completely forgotten about it and practically wrote the same thing, word for word in a post yesterday that I changed my mind about putting up. >.> But obviously my feelings haven't changed in well over a year.

"I'm frustrated and confused and I don't know what I want. I feel like I'm adjusting into who I am and I still haven't figured everything out yet. And I don't want help!!! "Mature, experienced" others are not me.  I don't want to be encouraged into being something I'm not by someone well-meaning but with a vested interest.

Who really knows me? You are not who you portray - is the actor the part? Does the player ALWAYS shine through?

I'm scared of succeeding. Potential is everything - reached or wasted, a person is meaningless. Stories end when potential is reached. Endings are nothingness.No one cares beyond happily ever after.

I want control, but there is none. Absolutes don't exist. I fear what I want but I crave independence. I want to be happy with my job and whoever I work with. Facetious people are those I lock out. I don't trust anyone but I genuinely like people. "

>.> Ok some of it is a little overdramatic... -shrug- I never said my psyche made perfect sense. In spite of that demand for no help, a little advice floated my way wouldn't be too bad. There is very little in the way of employment available anywhere, but especially where I live. I've been doing temp jobs for the past year with weeks to a month of nothing in between. My social connections are limited - I have 3 close friends, but 2 of them moved a couple of states over and the other is constantly busy with her boyfriend...and we've had some....issues...that make us not trust each other too much...especially when she has a guy in her life. I enjoy writing, but I have never been able to bring myself to finish anything - I wrote an entire novel last year, but it's like asking myself to remove my eyes with a rusty fork to edit the thing. I've managed to rework the intro...and another paragraph. My friend is trying to encourage me to write another novel this year, but the guilt tactic that worked then has made me stubborn and I've absolutely refused to do any writing. >< It's like tossing another regret onto the mountain of unfinished crap. If ideas were babies, I'd've been arrested for neglect a very long time ago. The friend that still lives out here is still clinging to this dream that one day the 2 of us will have an Empire of all of the crafts and skills we planned on mastering. -smacks head into wall- I don't want to have to rely on people to live on my own, but sometimes I'm afraid that I need social contact too much to be wholly independent.

I see many ideas here, so let me do my best to see what I can uncover. If I'm completely in left field in any of this, please correct me. I always want to test the "I'm always right" idea:

"I'm frustrated and confused and I don't know what I want." - Ahh, the story of my life with my fellow female ENFP friend. The grass is always greener there..no there... no, over there! You have ALL the directions figured out except the 'best' route you want to take. You need to realize not what you WANT but what you NEED. This only you can do, then 'logically' you can map out where the greatest percentage of your 'needs' will be fulfilled. You need to make a plan and stick to it. INTJs are famous for their ideas to find direction to where you want to be. Ask for help but first decide what you need.

"You are not who you portray - is the actor the part? Does the player ALWAYS shine through?" - You are you despite what you portray, it will ALWAYS shine through if you give it enough time. Also, be genuine and be real BUT be direct and be honest 100%. I notice and feel something when my close friends are only 99.9% honest with me... I can feel it. You might say this is an arrogant comment but I know it's true because when I do feel it, I force myself to trust that 'illogical' feeling that says "Something's not right" and bring it up and everytime I do, it leads to direct honesty and truth from them...which is incredibly satisfying. You call this whatever you want...conscious, soul, heart, whatever. I call it 'spiritual wisdom'. So be real, be true be UNIQUE.

"Potential is everything - reached or wasted, a person is meaningless. Stories end when potential is reached." - I see a flaw here. You believe that when you reach your 'potential'...it's done. HA! No! Never! Absolutely NOT! Today is the first day of the rest of your life and you will always always always always find ways of perfecting yourself. NEVER will you reach your full potential...If you don't try. If you set a small standard and reach it, you fail. You need to figure out ways to set the bar high, reach it, then set it higher. Always strive for the top, and when you reach it, go higher.

"Absolutes don't exist. I fear what I want but I crave independence" - Absolutes do exist but it's not in people. I can relate to your second statement. I desperately want a loving caring understanding beautiful woman to share my life with but at the same time, I, as an INTJ, NEED and fiercely hold onto my independance and am scared to give it up. It's a fence that I need to jump off very soon. The grass isn't necessarily greener on either of these sides, rather it's different colours. I need to choose what I need.

"I don't trust anyone but I genuinely like people" - I feel (and have been told) I'm VERY trustworthy and yet I can recall many times when I cheated, lied, stole, etc.. Who can I trust when I can't trust myself? I have the answer to that but you may not like it...

"If ideas were babies, I'd've been arrested for neglect a very long time ago." - If you were as persistant with ideas as you ENFPs are with cracking the indestructable shells of us INTJs, you'd be..... I don't even know how to descibe it, because you're so incredible amazing....even more so than you are already.... if that's possible.

"....will have an Empire of all of the crafts and skills we planned on mastering" - Even then, you'd still be 'planning' to master those skills and crafts. You need an INTJ-style push to finish.


OK, I'll stop rambling. If none if this made sense, I'm really sorry. I think I'll stop typing for now before I start creating chapters and eventually 'finish' () a novel here. Please please please correct me if I'm completely wrong, but does this have ANYthing to do with either a potential mate or moving to something deeper (marriage maybe?) with your current relationship?

Life's great quest basically boils down to three mundane questions:

What do you want?

How much does it cost?

Can you afford it?

If you have all that nailed down and still aren't happy, perhaps you're assuming things that aren't true. Human beings have emotions for a purpose -- they tell us if what we're doing is in harmony or in dissonance with Life itself.

Worst advice for young people: "always follow your dream," which is almost as bad as "be yourself!" That's the reckless, bullheaded Captain Ahab approach to life; it is a recipe for wreckage down the road. In place, perhaps it is better to take an adaptive outlook, and always follow your opportunities. There is no super secret "real me" divorced from history, biology, culture, et cetera; we all play the cards we're dealt.

Posted By JHBowden on 06 Nov 2009 02:13 PM

Worst advice for young people: "always follow your dream," which is almost as bad as "be yourself!" That's the reckless, bullheaded Captain Ahab approach to life; it is a recipe for wreckage down the road. In place, perhaps it is better to take an adaptive outlook, and always follow your opportunities. There is no super secret "real me" divorced from history, biology, culture, et cetera; we all play the cards we're dealt.

Ahahaha, great answer. But the question is.. if you can't be yourself, what do you look to to be? Hm... That's the BIG question. Some find it in religion, some find it in a high power, some find it in themselves, some find it in other people.

PHR34K--

Why not just be, instead of trying to be someone? Are we trying to get gold stars? The Ghost of Self-esteem, perhaps?

Sure, there is a trivial sense in which we are all identical with ourselves. "Be yourself" suggests though that we realize a potential, as if we're all deep down really baseball players, Hollywood stars, Senators, epic novelists, and just don't know it yet. This is profoundly narcissistic, for a few reasons. One, no one is keeping score. Two, there are over six billion people on this planet, and few of them give a damn about you or me. Three, in 100 years, we'll all be dead, and no one on the planet will care about us in a personal way. Four, even the planet has a finite shelf life. The universe does too.

People are way too self-obsessed, very much like Chesterton's maniac. Christopher Lasch even went as far as to say the entire tone of modern culture is narcissistic. Lasch might be wrong in a trivial sense, because human beings always have a tendency to be self-centered; the book of Ecclesiastes would make no sense if human vanity wasn't universal.

One thing is certain: the mac guy does need to shut up.

Alysaria, I think I know how you feel - there are so many options open to me, so many opportunities and paths to follow that it seems overwhelming. I dream of all the things I could do - that I'd like to do, but somehow I never seem to follow them up. At the end of each day I feel like I've wasted time - like I've gone nowhere. I dream all the time, see potential everywhere, but I never bring my dreams to reality - so many unfinished intentions. I want to follow through with things, to get things done, but I don't want to tie myself down - to cut down my options by focusing on one thing. I want to do everything, but I end up doing nothing. I'm afraid that I'll invest myself in something, but that it'll go wrong - that it just won't be as good as it is in my dreams. I don't want to be stuck in a rut. I'm still trying to figure out where I am in life - what I'm going to do. The future is deep and murky, and I can't tell what it's going to be like. It's filled with potential, but it's scary too, and while I'm sitting at the side of the pool, wondering whether to risk jumping in, in every area of life things are passing me by. I'm terrified of unfulfilled potential, but not as much as I'm scared of hitting a dead end. It feels safer just to cling to dreams...

I'm not sure how much of that is teenage angst, how much is the normal worries and anxieties of life, and how much is mild paranoia caused by not having slept in 23 hours, but the future really does seem scary. I don't want to fall to the side or lag behind, but I can't tell which path to take, and I don't want to spend my life going down the wrong path... I guess I'll just make it up as I go along

But being in a new state and not working, I haven't found a girl friend that I truly connect

Posted By alysaria on 07 Nov 2009 10:44 PM
Yea, I've checked out the enneagram a bit. I'm a 7w8...which I suppose makes my motivation control....with an emphasis on realism. I'm not really sure about the wings. I basically get that I'm in the head triad, which has an emphasis on control. 7s are focused on the idea of being controlled....and rebel against it....convinced of their ability to talk their way out of any problem that may come up. I read somewhere that 7s are created from a feeling of neglect....as though they feel that they can't trust anyone to meet their needs, but that site seemed less convincing and didn't explain very well.

Get the book "The Enneagram  Understanding yourself and the others in your life" by Helen Palmer.  It was the easiest for me to understand.   

Question for Saul or anyone else really, but as an ENFP, how did you decide what to do and follow through? I can't seem to get the latter down. It's horrid, and affects my health and sleep when I don't accomplish things. It's somehow attached to my self worth I think?

I'd been considering moving out of state to where slayer and his wife live. It's very similar to where I live now...a little smaller, but it's a thriving college town that's in the process of growing. I've had my feelers up for employment out there, because I want to be able to pay for a place if I rent out there. I started thinking about it. At first, I was kind of excited by the prospect....getting all my stuff together and organizing it in my own place. Being independent. Then I realized I don't know the first thing about being on my own. I've always been the sheltered youngest child.... I know it's not that complicated, but I start to panic over all the details anyway - changing my address on what bills I have....paying bills I've never had and staying on top of them, making arrangements for everything in an apt. Then there's the job issue. I know my track record....I'm fortunate to make enough friends in the places I've worked to have a good reference, but I have rarely left a company on good terms. I lose all respect for managers who are inept in my mind, and I can't even fake it. I get sarcastic and antagonistic. They make a power play to teach me a lesson and I walk. It feels like it would be more stressful to be in a situation where I don't have the safety-net of home and family....and if I don't like my job, what do I do? I don't have confidence that I'll get one job out there, much less a replacement if the first one fizzles.

Slayer offered to help me....but I don't see what he can do other than keep me updated on possible jobs. But it took him months to get a job out there....and he's a resident. He's also got more and longer work experience and a better resume. What do I have? A half dozen jobs with a 2 year record.....a bunch of random crafts.....my only work reference is my INFP friend who always ends up as my supervisor when we work together. I don't connect with coworkers really. Slayer suggested, today when I nearly broke down and cried over the phone, that I could just take baby steps and move to an apt near home.....when I thought diving into the deep end was the better plan. ><

Maybe I *should* take psychology courses. At least do *something*

I'm overthinking. Overthinking is bad. >< Ne is cycling through all the possible negatives and Fi is fuelling them with inadequacy and ineptitude. I'm socially isolated and I don't want to attach myself to the only friends I have....only to pick up and groupie after them again when my INFJ friend (slayer's wife) is done with her graduate studies and off to find her place in the world.

I try I really try to sit and contemplate what I want....but I get so easily distracted. And I start to wonder if there even is a place for me. -sigh- I sometimes feel like I live my life shining like a spotlight on my friends....building them up and cheering on their dreams and encouraging them to be their best....and I'm terrified that if I had the spotlight, I wouldn't be anyone worth watching.