ENFP’s must read

I found this in a Reddit thread in subreddit r/ENFP at 3am. Made by u/Blankpagez and shout out to him/her if he/she ever see this post. That stuff is absolute gold and a panacea to ENFPs who share the same concern over their uncertain and confused self. Knowing that Reddit is inaccessible through conventional Indonesian internet, and obliges VPN, so I’ll copy it directly from the thread, enjoy! (Credits to u/Blankpagez and his/her thread link here)

It’s quite a long read but I assure you, it’s beautiful and worth reading!

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Post title: Hey, Here’s my ENFP guide that I wrote for myself (of course at 3 a.m.)

Grow up. Seriously grow up. And faster, and better, and stronger, than anyone tells you you can. Seriously people have such a way of saying “This is exactly the way things go. Don’t do this, and do that.” Screw that. People don’t know anything. Or rather they know just about as much as you do, which is little-to-nothing about most things. And the sooner you give up your faith on people and start believing in a higher something. Higher than all the rest of this mundane crap we call humanity, the better off you will be.

Now I know you. You are walking contradictions and you are okay with this. Be okay with it. Know that it’s not something you could change even if you wanted to. And you don’t really want to. It’ll only get better when you realize that it’s okay to have cognitive dissonance in yourself. Yes you can believe in Evolution and a God or Gods. Yes you can have a love and a hate for the same person. Yes you can think that you are the greatest, and that everyone else is the greatest as well. These are not contractions. And if they are, embrace them. Because they are your truths. And nothing anyone will say can change the fact that you are perfectly capable of living out all these contradictions and paradoxes, in the healthiest life you could possibly have.

Now, while I say screw people, and screw systems, I also encourage you to find the place you are welcome to be yourself. You really don’t have time in this life to be with the people that won’t let you be you. You are so self aware, and aware of other’s. You have this interpersonal genius inside of you, that largely goes unappreciated by most. Screw the most, find the few. And trust me, it’s hard. It’s hard to find the few people who love you for being deep one second and then completely silly goofy the next, and then go straight back down into seriousness, just to pop back out of it, because you found a great connection between what was said and a joke you heard once.

Seriously I know this may be overused and the thing is I know it’s bad advice for others, but it’s great advice for you. Be yourself. Don’t be afraid to show who you really are. I know you hate conflict and you are the most flexible person that could possibly be. But here’s the truth. The actual Truth. Your strength doesn’t lie in just being flexible. It lies in your ability to adapt. Which means being flexible at times. Other times, however, you will find that being hard and rigid and not giving up your views will serve you best. Seriously people will like you more if they know what you will and will not stand for. And trust me, you can tolerate and love a whole slew of bad behaviors from others because you can see yourself also doing that if you had the motivation inside of you to do so. But remember if you are upset at someone it’s not just because you are immature and need to get over it. It’s because they went against one of your values. Find out what value they offended, and then guess what. You know what you stand for! You can do that with anything. Every time someone does or says or thinks something that you find wrong or hurtful. You can figure out what exactly the value is they offended. You can find the love for the other person easier if you know that it’s just a value of yours they hurt.

Remember, for you, you can see the motivation to do anything. You understand people possibly way better than they will ever understand you. And that’s okay. You don’t really need to be fully understood by anyone except your closest people. And sometimes in life you will find you are alone. Like truly alone. Like no one understands you. And guess what. I do. I understand that. I get you. And that’s the value you can give to others.

Really if you are feeling down and misunderstood. Start talking, you will probably be able to get out enough words before the other person starts talking that you will at least feel heard in a way. And then you get to listen to others story and feel that closeness and that connection that you crave so deeply.

Remember it’s whatever side of you you feed. It’s the dark side or the light side. The thing is you will many times of your life feel like you have just been sitting in grey for a very long time. You won’t really know if the behavior you have is good or bad. And so you will look to others for validation. Which is fine, you are an extravert and so you do well with feedback from others. If a person sees bad or ill-intent in you you will be crushed, if they see good or that your intent was good you will be elated.

Just realize if people are being overly critical of you to the point that you aren’t really receiving anything from them other than negativity. There’s definitely something wrong with the other’s perspective not with what you are doing. And they aren’t on your team. Gather around yourself people who are on your team. You really don’t have time for anything but those people. I know you love and care for everyone, but everyone will not love and care for you. And the sooner you can realize this, accept this, and be fine with it, the faster in life you will progress. I know you are super interested in personal development. The most influential book you will possibly read is “How to Make Friends and Influence People.” Read it and re-read it because it’s just that good. You will be able to get outside of yourself and really add value to the lives of others.

Realize that the only way to get paid is by adding value to the lives of others. Now you may be secure and coddled at times. And these are good times because you won’t have much to worry about. Then adulting and difficult decisions will take place and you will want to escape. And that’s fine. You can really do so. There is harm though in avoiding your problems too much though, and you will find that the faster and more willing you are to face your problems the better more fulfilling your life will be. Seriously. I know it feels like you get overwhelmed so easily, but that’s just because the muscle isn’t built up there. Trust me push through overwhelm, and you will find purpose. It’s truly fantastic.

Realize that you can feel whatever feeling you want to in whatever circumstance you are in. I’m serious about this. You just have to change your thinking. And don’t do it in the super positive “this statement is something I could never believe but it’s positive” way. Do it in the “I’m a realist but I’m also okay with myself.” You look for the positive side of any situation, person, or thing. Because that is who you are.

Realize that the way your mind makes connections between seemingly unrelated things, is just part of the genius you were born with. Others will not understand or appreciate these things about you. Screw them.

Seriously one of the biggest searches you will find in your life will be to be appreciated by others. The fastest way to do this is to find others who will appreciate you. This could be siblings, this could be parents, this could be a friend. But you will find them. And hold onto them. Realize that while out of sight out of mind is a story you tell yourself. Realize you don’t really forget those that have made the biggest impact on your life, and trust me they will love a message or visit from you just to tell them how much you appreciate them.

Don’t operate from fear, operate from faith. And have a good person you look up to and respect define faith for you. Because it is simple. But oftentimes what seems the simplest things initially, are the most complicated to fully understand.

Find a comfortable bed. One big struggle you will find is your struggle with sleep. Your mind loves going on and on and could do so until you die, And this death will be quite soon if you treat your mind and body badly. Remember the mind is attached to the body. So find a great heavy blanket, a soft comfortable mattress, and a soft fluffy pillow. Create that space that is yours and you are king of it.

Realize that just with anything too much of something is too much. And hey you are the definition of finding too much. Your button pushing will not be appreciated by some.

You will develop masks to hide how much you feel, in fact you may think of yourself and more logically based than emotionally based. Realize that you are both an emotional creature and a logical one, But that your strength will be in really tapping into your emotional side.

Find someone who will listen to you. Find someone to listen to. These are your greatest strengths, your ability to listen and your ability to speak. You may not find many who are willing to listen to you as long as you want to speak. That is what writing is for. So write a lot. And don’t hate it, and don’t care what English teachers say. If you don’t care any of the topics ask for different topics. Hating it will just set you back a few years and you will write like a madman when you discover it again years down the road.

Realize that your strength lies in idea generation and while you can implement, implementation is not your strength. So find someone who is a good implementer and show them due appreciation for who they are for you.

Realize you will spend a great deal of time explaining yourself to others. And know that you won’t always have the words to describe what you feel, think, or even why you did or said the things you did. Know that the answers will come eventually. And find people who will be okay with you just saying “I don’t know why”

Learn to trust your gut. Now this is a topic that many will discourage you from thinking about. And that’s because they’ve done things off their gut and gotten hurt. And they’ve learned to not trust their gut. And that’s okay for them. But you have a great gut. You will be wrong at times. You will fall and hurt yourself because your gut said “Hey try this” And you did and it hurt. Still learn to listen to it, with little things. Like eating better, or exercising, when it tells you to. And you will learn that by listening to it a little at a time. You will build up the confidence in it to make bigger and bigger decisions. These are going to be your most important decisions. And trust me you will want to go with what your gut tells you. You have an amazing ability to understand situations faster than most other people.

You may go through life not thinking you are creative. While nothing could be further from the truth. You just haven’t had the direction in your life to focus your creativity. So you will likely dabble or have dabbled in many creative endeavors. From singing, to drawing, to musical instruments, to acting. The thing is you will find that the mentors you had there were not teaching you in the style you learned best in. So all these will likely fade, while you just live with them in your memory. Don’t leave them there. You really can motivate yourself. You just have decide what you want to do, awhile in advance and make that commitment to yourself. Give yourself a why behind it.

Remember you are a why person. You aren’t content in just doing things for the sake of that’s what’s always been done. Traditions are important. But you have to find the traditions that work for you. Get rid of the rest. People have all the traditions in the world, and 90% of them aren’t for you. Find your own, create your own. Build traditions with your loved ones. Realize that no tradition is too sacred.

Find the why behind everything you do. That is your search and everyone’s search. Now others will find simple answers to the why and be content there. You will not be this way. You will need a deeper why than most. Don’t stop until you find it. Because this will be your driving force behind all you do. In fact you will be so demotivated when you ask, “why?” and their is not a sufficient answer. Your why is so big. Realize that you won’t find it to be the same with the majority of people. Realize that that is okay. In fact, you may feel jealous at times towards people who live life just because it’s there to be lived. Not so with you. Realize that neither a big or small why is better or worse. You need both kinds of people for the world to function properly. Whatever function properly means.

Keep in mind, your ability to see things from pretty much any viewpoint means that it will be hard for you to make decisions. Realize that at the very least it will take a while for you to reach a decision and that if you are rushed into a decision you may not make the best decision. Because your decisions have to resonate with your core beliefs. And that takes a long time to process. So be patient with yourself.

Really, be most patient with yourself. You are the only one who has to deal with you constantly so be sure to make a friend of yourself. Be kind, and considerate. You will find if you do so with yourself, it’s 100 times easier to do this with others.

Realize that, while you are an extravert, you need quite a bit of alone time to be healthy. You can operate most of the time quite well with groups of people, but just know that you really would rather be having a one-on-one conversation with a single individual. You will find yourself having those deep personal conversations even in group settings. Your feelings generally only get processed when you have time to reflect upon them, which generally happens outside of the company of others. Granted, you can work through feelings interacting with people, but that generally isn’t 100 percent honest because you still have that need to put on a show. You can’t be radically honest with people as much as you can with yourself. (At least it’s way more difficult)

Realize that you are intuitive which means recognizing patterns is where you shine. You can take a small sampling of something and extrapolate that quite accurately to get the picture of the whole. Never let yourself go too long without exercising this part of you or you will find yourself the most unhappy.

Realize you make decisions based off of how you feel about something. So what does this exclude? Or rather what other decision making processes do you at times use to supplement your decisions but ultimately don’t fully trust. The feelings of others, the accuracy of something, and the effectiveness of something. They are nicknamed Harmony, Accuracy, And Effectiveness. The one you use is nicknamed Authenticity.

Realize that your perceptiveness is both a strength and a curse. Realize that it will constantly be looking for the next best thing, and that it can keep you from settling. Realize it has it’s uses but also realize you need to make decisions. So make the decisions. Convince yourself, that while landing on a certain decision that is perhaps not the “best” decision, it is better than just never making any decision. Here’s another way you can think of it. You would much rather be the bird that lands on a telephone wire, (far away from a nest) than to be the bird constantly looking for the best nest to make home and never land. Which one will find rest? The one that made it’s decision and landed.

Make important decisions way in advance. You will be able to find guides on what your next decisions should be. Through books. Read more books. What someone else feels is good enough to be published, probably has some amount of truth to their writing. So read, listen, and understand. You have the ability to filter truth out of rubble. Use it while on the pursuit of knowledge.

Anyway hope this will help someone. Maybe you, maybe not. Just know I spoke from my heart.