Home with a sick kid playing Wii and making soup.
NOT what I envisioned

It’s all written down, emailed out, confirmed and of course subject to change, but the foundation is up and I’m ready to build 2010!

I’m so excited about this year. I love it when we get to start over and every new year is like a mental do over.
YAY!

“Double Income No Kids Yuppie”

I have to admit, for a long time I hoped that my son would be gay so that he would have the financial freedom to not have to submit to the financial commitment of a child.
Alas… he is not. And he already talks about having a big family. I don’t think he really knows what that will be like, but everyone makes their own choices.

Sometimes I think about the fact that I wouldn’t do a lot of the things I do if I didn’t have a kid and his future to think about. I definitely would choose a path that had much less resistance and I would be a lot more financially loose and selfish with my income, so maybe he has made me a better person. Who knows. According to most of my friends that are DINKY’s they think about having children but then say ” I don’t want to give up my lifestyle, schedule or free time.” And I can understand that but I also know that in about 10 years they will get bored and become more aware of their impermanence and try to grasp onto something more meaningful and decide to pro create to “live on forever”. At this point it seems ridiculous and not the reason you would decide to have a kid.
Do they tuck them in at night saying ” I suddenly realized I was gonna die so we decided to have you to make me feel better about my impending death, beside I was doing the same things for a decade and got a little bored and at 38 decided I should give some meaning to my life.”
Nope. But that’s why they will do it.
I much rather prefer my parents love story of lusty backseat teenage hormones in full swing, passionate details and difficult choices. At least my existence was based on someone acting out of passion and possibly love instead of fear, boredom or “creating” someone to love.

Then sometimes I look around and notice that I am significantly younger than most mom’s who have children my son’s age and I think, who would want to raise a 5 yr old when they are in their 40’s. Not me. I will be 45 when mine graduates from high school and some women will have toddlers at that age. No thank you.

I don’t understand this weird trend to spend the end of your life raising children.
I don’t get it.

I also don’t understand the “DINKY” population that decides to wait until the last minute to freak out and decide they want to propagate their DNA. It’s a child you morons. They deserve parents that can play with them, they already have grandparents and by the time you have a kid your parents will be too old or dead to be a participating grandparent.
Maybe I am a black or white kind of person but it’s clearly a decide or move on kind of situation.
All pregnancies past age 32 for a woman are considered high risk. I guess if your a guy you can get with a much younger woman and have babies with her, but it doesn’t usually work well the other way around.

All I can do is shake my head and conclude that I just don’t understand.

I have realized that I live WAY outside main stream society. I am in my 30’s. I work 2 jobs but they are jobs I could quit if I wanted to, I go to school full time, I have a blackberry but it’s for fun, I use my email, for fun, I get online and don’t have to regulate myself or do severe time management to “get things done”. In general I do what I want when I want, with the exception of taking care of my son, I pretty much make my own schedule and on a daily basis choose what I want to do.
I keep reading how people hate their email, or have to give themselves time outs from online social networking sites (I just give myself a time frame to see if it’s something that adds to my life or drains me), they have problems with time management and never see their families or friends. It seems as if communication has become a necessary evil instead of a welcomed opportunity.
I am a busy person no doubt, but its because I choose to be and if I didn’t want to be busy, I just wouldn’t do half the stuff I choose to do.
I see the internet as an unnecessary toy and my blackberry as a fun gadget, meaning I don’t NEED these things and although they make me happy I could live without them. My time is flexible and I pick and choose on a daily basis my priorities and it scares me to death to think of moving into a career that dictates my lifestyle, where I am confined to a desk all day or having to work on a time schedule so I can be more “efficient”.
Even when I worked in a more corporate environment I was off site everyday between 3 different locations and I was only at my desk for 1 hour in the morning and about 30 min after lunch and 1 hour before leaving if I was in the office at all.
At my current job I am all over the place, I can’t sit still, I am constantly learning something new or trying to devise better ways to do things. And if I get really bored I get on my phone and “chat” it up till something comes up.
When I read a lot of life hacks or getting things done tips and blogs, it makes me cringe that there are a lot of people out there that feel overwhelmed with their jobs and lives and don’t feel in control of themselves or their time.
I work really hard but I do it knowing that I always make the choice to do that. I sometimes kick myself for not taking time off. What can I say… I have a hard time turning down what I call “easy money”. Although money is time and I’m getting a little more stingy with that lately.

This morning I choose to sleep in and I got the kid to school at 10:30. So what. He’s 5 and it’s the week after Christmas, I’m sure it won’t affect him tomorrow much less 15 years from now, but you know what, it affected today and it felt great to take things slow and move at the pace I needed for today. I think a lot of people hold themselves to some strict standards that are unnecessary and some days you gotta just go with what feels good.

I often judge whether something is important based on how it will impact the future.
Example:
The kid likes to hold my hand in parking lots and hop and skip making it impossible to walk and it’s very frustrating.
I just think to myself, this is a 5 yr old, he won’t do this when he is 15 and there are much bigger things to be frustrated over than this. Then I think about how cute it is and how he will never be 5 again and he will never hop, skip and jump holding my hand as he gets older and I remind myself to enjoy the moment and make a mental note to remember this when I get frustrated with him.

I relate this to work- I think a lot of people feel frustrated and confined to a never ending work load and get overwhelmed with technology and emails and need some structured filters to process all this information through. They are missing all the good parts though… there are good parts, in every job, even if it’s just the paycheck.

I think even if I didn’t work a job I would fill my time up with a million other things, I’ve never done just 1 thing at a time, I have a million ideas, projects and interests. I have an enormous amount of energy that I just refuse to waste on singularly making money for someone else.

My shadow side (ESTP) is bipolar.

Like holding onto a chained pit bull when it spots a squirrel.

Why are people so mean? This poor woman. She needs those invites more now than ever. I just will never understand how cruel and paranoid people can be.

I’ve concluded that very few people are very satisfied and those that are, are either looked down on as unambitious or looked up to as monastic.

It seems to be a fine line based on individual subjective perceptions.

I would instantly be very suspicious of someone who told me they were completely satisfied with their lives unless they were really old and were trying to give meaning to their lives and acceptance of moving closer to the end.

INFJ and friendship

Points I particularly relate to:

” I have spent the greater part of my life trying to please and help everyone around me and find there is no one to help me when I need it. I have become very resentful and tend to keep to myself more and more.

I married an iNTJ and have taken on some of his personality traits. I am not sure it is for the better. I find that I have a very hard time making friends. My husband says that I scare people because I always know what they are thinking or what they really feel. I am also unable to hide how I feel and that causes conflict with friends.

Friends tend to think that I have it all together because I am very diciplied and able to work towards a goal and eventualy meet it. I hate people that make excuses for their life without trying to change it. I don’t feel that anything is out of my reach and I plan for everything.

I feel like I never meet others like me and now I know why. 2% of the population are like me and I am sure I have not met one yet!

Lately people look at me like I am from another planet when I talk which makes me feel bad and want to withdraw to my little corner of the world all the more. I am a stay at home mom these days after trying non-profit work and getting a degree in psychology. I find that being around needy people for very long drains me.”

- The last part where she mentions perfection in the home I don’t really relate to on a physical level, meaning I don’t expect to have a tidy or organized home all the time and I prefer for it to be creative and feel more comfortable. I don’t really stress out about cleaning and I actually find it cathartic, it’s what I do to meditate and zen out. I have lots of pets and it’s more important to be surrounded by what I consider my loved ones and the things that inspire me than to keep order. I’m also kinda messy, not in a dirty way, like food or dirt or anything, I just throw my clothes on the floor and kick my shoes off and leave them in the living room, I can go to bed with a sink full of dirty dishes. But I will run through my mental to do list for the next day before I go to bed.
- I also married an INTJ and he says I intimidate people but I’ve never intimidated him and he likes that I make people uncomfortable because I’m pretty sure he doesn’t have a high opinion of most people and thinks that everyone should experience reality and honesty and he thinks that I often bring out the truth and people have a hard time with hearing the truth. He’s not breakable and I like that. He’s not scared of me and I like that too. He stands up to me and can laugh through all the seriousness. He doesn’t hold a grudge and we can get VERY real and honest with each other and then just shake it off and move on. I really don’t find that in most people. Most people take everything I say very personally. I like that I can be myself and not censor what I say or how I feel out of fear or possible regret of consequences. I trust him to hold to his promises and regardless of what happens between us I know that he will hold to the promises he has made me and even if we are not together he will never leave me alone. He may not be on “my team”, but we are both moving towards the same goals and that’s important.

“Introverts and live inside our heads. Most people are Extroverts who live in the outside world of people, places and things. Most of these Extroverts are also Sensing people, which means they can only relate to that which they can see or feel.

This is the exact opposite of INFJs, who first relate to what is happening in their inner world. As Introverted Intuitive, they “know” things by their Intuition, not thru what they see in front of them. This makes communication very difficult because we can’t easily explain what we feel or know to people that only understand what they see.”

- Yes I find it very hard sometimes to explain the moving picture in my head and how I know things that don’t seem logic based on the sensory circumstances. I also have a hard time explaining my actions because people assume that what they see me doing is what I am actually doing when in fact I am usually doing something physical that is totally mental in my objective. Basically my reasons for doing things are not always obvious but look suspicious when in fact they are usually very genuinely caring acts.

” The rest of the world can sense how we feel, but not how we understand things. “

- Everyone can see how I feel, most of the time I don’t have to say anything, I have a terrible poker face.

“One minute we are sharing praise or comforting people and the next minute we are critical. We are usually very honest in projecting our Feelings, but this confuses and often scares Sensing types. Holding our tongues doesn’t always help because we just can’t hide how we feel.”

“People always take what an INFJ says personally.”

- Yep. I almost always have to preface most conversations with – I don’t mean this personally or some other way to buffer the fact that I know no matter how I say something someone will take it personally. I try to choose my words wisely which is why I prefer writing, it gives me time to think, process, write, edit, re think, re type and then eventually “send”. I have been trying to be more un filtered but I still re read my sent mail immediately after sending it to look for type o’s and make sure that I said what I meant. It’s kinda exhausting to be honest so I value the friendships I have where I can just type what I am thinking without all the filters and internal feedback. I still cringe a little but… I want to be more relaxed about this and I figure the more I do it the more comfortable I will be with communicating my unfiltered stream of consciousness.

“INFJ’s usually see and often vocalize both sides of every issue. They may be conservative on one issue and liberal on another. This confuses people who like to know what others are thinking, but can’t (since only INFJ’s and INFP’s can do this and they are very rare).”

- I agree this must be frustrating and confusing because my INFP mother does this and it confuses me. I know I do this too. I will say that I am more apt to change my mind, I am more flexible with my “opinions” and I like to get feedback from everyone to see what they think or how they feel and then I re evaluate my opinion or judgement. It’s like I am trying to get more information so I can make the best decision whereas she makes a decision based on what she thinks or how she feels and really sticks to that no matter what.

“We need to be careful that we don’t take on other personality traits as a means to escape into a better world. For an INFJ, this usually means becoming our “shadow” personality, an ESTP. As one who went this route for a long time, I only have one thing to say – DON’T GO THERE. It doesn’t work. Life will only get worse.”

- I do this a lot. I shift from one to the other and even into other personality traits. I can sense what others expect and want from me and will either choose to adapt into that, leave the interaction or crawl into my head.

“Generally speaking, people don’t hurt us because they are mean. They hurt us because they either don’t understand us or they don’t understand themselves. As INFJ’s and INFP’s we are blessed with a far greater ability to understand. We should use that ability to improve our lives as well as those around us. The easiest way to do this is to RELAX. Don’t take everything so seriously. Save your energy for that which is truly important. Demand a little better from everyone, and a lot less from yourself.”

-This should be my New Years motto.