How Discovering I Was An INTJ Changed My Life

Hey, everyone.

So, as promised, here's the coveted return of the original INTJ posts, starting with how finding out I was an INTJ changed my life. There's not much point of writing an introduction for this. Let's just hop to it.

So, if you spend any time on the Internet, you're likely aware of how many quizzes there are that help people figure out who they are. Some of these are just for funzies, like what kind of dragon are you or what is your DnD alignment, but some are quite serious and informative such as the ones dealing with psychology and personality. I was no stranger to MBTI tests when I took the one on 16Personalities, but I never took them seriously. I actually remember taking one on Facebook and getting ISTJ and feeling sufficiently esteemed. I don't remember how I ended up on 16Personalities, but the more important question is if I got ISTJ before, how did I end up with INTJ from 16P's? Well, I believe 16P's' test is more thorough. I think it is the definitive MBTI quiz on the net. But how did the result change my life?

Well, after taking the test and getting a four, technically five, letter personality doesn't really mean anything to you until you understand what each letter and category is, not to mention how they interact with each other and how that creates the beautiful mystery of who you are. 16P's goes a little deeper than that because they also assign "Roles" to people depending on certain traits they get as well as "Strategies." For those who don't know, Roles determine goals, interests, and preferred activities. There are four of them: Analysts (xNTx), Diplomats (xNFx), Sentinels (xSxJ), and Explorers (xSxP). Strategies meanwhile describe our preferred ways of doing things and achieving goals. Again, there are four of them: Confident Individualism (Ixxx-A), People Mastery (Exxx-A), Constant Improvement (Ixxx-T), and Social Engagement (Exxx-T).

For those wondering about the A's and T's, 16P's added a fifth dimension called "Identity," which is confidence in abilities and decisions, and you can be either "Assertive" or "Turbulent." If you're Assertive, you don't let stress get you and you're very confident about getting your projects finished even if you're not hustling, whereas Turbulent personalities are susceptible to stress, but they always get their work done and more because of how much they hustle.

Anyway, my results were INTJ-A, meaning I'm an Analyst and my strategy is Confident Individualism. So, basically I'm a rational and impartial intellectual who is fiercely independent, strong-willed, and imaginative. I prefer to do things alone, choosing to rely on my own skills and instincts; I believe in personal responsibility, and I prefer to rely on only myself. 16P's goes further with INTJs saying we're "imaginative and strategic thinkers with a plan for everything." At our best, we're quick, imaginative, and strategic, have high self-confidence, are independent and decisive, hard-working and determined, open minded, and we're Jack-of-all-Trades. At our worst, we're arrogant, judgmental, overly analytical, loathe highly structured environments, and are clueless in romance.

Most of that is exactly right, which blew my mind. I used to think I was so unique that no one could understand me, that I was purely one-of-a-kind. But 16P's enlightened me to the truth. But rather than be crushed by this, because everyone wants to be unique, I found it extremely liberating. See, like most Introverts, I thought there was something wrong with me or something wrong with the world. How was it that I could earn the respect and admiration of my peers for being so intelligent and ambitious, but garner their harassment and criticism for who I was in day-to-day life? I thought I was weird and unbalanced. I mean, I did think I was special, destined for something greater, most INTJs do, but I thought I was unique amongst the whole world's population. Come to find out, I'm not and for whatever reason, that let the pressure off me. There wasn't something wrong with me, I was just different. And how! (Remember, INTJs are quite rare.)

It was also comforting to see all my virtues laid bare, listed and easily understandable. And while I didn't like to see my vices also so easily identified, it is nice to know where my weaknesses lie. But by being identified as an INTJ, I now had a definitive identity behind who I was, which I know sounds weird, but my name, religion, nationality, occupation, etc. can only do so much. Those things describe what and who I am, not how I function. Knowing I'm an INTJ, I can tell people that and they will understand me. By knowing I'm an INTJ, it helps me identify myself, my character, and more importantly, what I can become. But why is that so important?


That might sound like a strange question, even when coming from an INTJ. We're extremely self-analytical, so if there's anyone out there who knows us, it's ourselves. So, obviously, that's quite important to us. But, why should that matter to the great cosmic understanding of the universe? Why should anyone care that we care about being INTJs? Because without the knowledge that I can be understood and that there are others out there like me, I go back to being on my own again. I'm a singular uniqueness in a world that's full of nothing but the same. It sounds special, but it surprisingly comes with an extremely heavy burden. You feel pressured to live up to the specialness that only you seem to have. Not to mention, it's also bitterly lonely and you start to wonder if maybe you're just an arrogant assh*le who thinks too much of himself. For a while, I didn't think of myself as "human" because it was so mundane; I knew I was something better, higher, more evolved, which can sound awfully pretentious. But knowing that that's just a part of my personality, that that identity crisis is just a part of who I am, it somehow makes everything better.

But, not everyone needs this sort of comfort. At least two of my friends don't need to know they're perfectly normal because as Sentinels, which I think they are, as the most common role out there, they don't feel out of place at all. INTJs are definitely out of place. You know that part from The Matrix where Morpheus tells Neo how he can sense that there's something intangibly wrong with the world, but he can't describe it, he just knows it's there? INTJs have this feeling all the time, and a chunk of that time, it's focused around our very existence, our presence in the "normal" world. Diplomats don't have this problem because they try to connect to the world even if they don't understand it; Explorers just want to explore the world and don't care to understand it; and Sentinels merely want to make sure everything is working as it should be. Analysts however drive themselves crazy with trying to "solve" it, trying to figure out the world. It's like Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; we're trying to figure out the answer to everything. I don't know if INTJs feel this desire moreso than the other Analyst personalities, but it is a strong desire within us, and the fact that we can always sense something wrong with the world, but can't express it to other people, let alone get them to listen to our theory without thinking we're crazy, it definitely puts a rift between us and everyone else. But that's the great thing about 16P's--there are others out there who have experienced the rift. I'm not as alone as I thought.

Now, I wouldn't say finding out I'm an INTJ has been a completely positive experience. I do almost treat it as a second religion or ideology. I identify with being an INTJ as much as I identify with being a Catholic and I've been Catholic for far longer (I think). I feel more like an INTJ and Catholic than I do an American. So, as a result of this fanaticism, I've tried to build myself up into the perfect INTJ. I model my life off the best and (what I think are) the most defining INTJ qualities, which to some extent has ostracized me more from people as I try to live 100% free and independent which means I have to bear all my problems by myself, and that does get quite difficult sometimes--it's hard to rely totally on yourself when you're still fallible and it's yourself who is responsible for your biggest disappointments.

But, overall, I would say that discovering I was an INTJ was very good for me. Even if I can't completely explain why, it has done me good and I think will continue to do me good. I like being an INTJ and I wouldn't want to be any other MBTI personality.

Keep writing, my friends.

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