Deep down, we’re focused on making the world a better place. We’re constantly on the search for our purpose in life, for the meaning of our existence, and this search—which can be agonizing, enlightening, and burdening—can never be made close to complete if there’s no greater aim for the greater good.
This is really a post for another time, so I’ll keep it brief. This need to have a mission, and the need to have a mission that is outwardly-focused, consumes all INFPs without regard. We can’t just live to have fun. We can’t just be casual. We can’t just have the happy-go-lucky, let-come-what-may, life-is-too-short so have-a-good-time mental paradigm. Any attempt to embrace such a paradigm leaves us restless, breathless, and confused. We’re like a square trying to fit into a circular hole. So long as we have no mission, and so long as this mission isn’t outwardly-focused, we’ll never experience any sort of contentment. This period of struggling feels like limbo: it’s stagnation, it’s wasting time, it’s withering and shrinking and bloating and putrefying. As we wrestle with our “calling” or “vocation” or whatever the hell you want to call it (interesting, isn’t it, that the vast majority of INFPs—although the group is rare as a whole—are consumed with “callings” on their life?), we’ll feel restless and anxious, a constant sense of unease about us; but when we finally “discover” our vocation, and engage it wholeheartedly, there’s to be found great peace and great success, as Part I showed. And honestly, I know this period of wrestling quite well because I’m there right now. And how envious am I of those who can adopt that nonchalant, carefree attitude? You’ve no idea. I’d kill for that.
This is really a post for another time, so I’ll keep it brief. This need to have a mission, and the need to have a mission that is outwardly-focused, consumes all INFPs without regard. We can’t just live to have fun. We can’t just be casual. We can’t just have the happy-go-lucky, let-come-what-may, life-is-too-short so have-a-good-time mental paradigm. Any attempt to embrace such a paradigm leaves us restless, breathless, and confused. We’re like a square trying to fit into a circular hole. So long as we have no mission, and so long as this mission isn’t outwardly-focused, we’ll never experience any sort of contentment. This period of struggling feels like limbo: it’s stagnation, it’s wasting time, it’s withering and shrinking and bloating and putrefying. As we wrestle with our “calling” or “vocation” or whatever the hell you want to call it (interesting, isn’t it, that the vast majority of INFPs—although the group is rare as a whole—are consumed with “callings” on their life?), we’ll feel restless and anxious, a constant sense of unease about us; but when we finally “discover” our vocation, and engage it wholeheartedly, there’s to be found great peace and great success, as Part I showed. And honestly, I know this period of wrestling quite well because I’m there right now. And how envious am I of those who can adopt that nonchalant, carefree attitude? You’ve no idea. I’d kill for that.
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