Story of my Life

According to Myers-Briggs, I am an INFP*

Sometimes I think my lot in life is just to be people's listening ear.  The story of my life is that I am often the receptacle of someone's external processing.  There seems to be an invisible sign on my forehead that says, "Tell me your problems".  Even as a child, adults would tell me things, so I quickly became precocious--or had pre-existing precocity reinforced by an inordinate amount of adult interaction.  I was more comfortable among my elders than my peers.

During elementary school years, I spent most of my time around a mom and a brother who were both extroverted and opinionated (translated into my introverted perception as not being self-conscious enough and often offending others), so to compensate, I learned how to be a people-pleaser.  I learned how to smooth over rough places and to diffuse conflict and tension.

Because my environment very much favored extroversion, I learned how to act like one.  The results it that, in social settings, I know how to flit around from group to group, making small talk and banter and relating to many kinds of individuals.  It's a social skill I've been blessed with--and one that I've honed over the years.  I am a natural listener and a people-pleaser who has learned how to be a bridge between different groups of people.

The thing with being a bridge, though, is that people walk over you in order to get to the other side.

Do I resent that?  I don't know.

What I will say is that something good better come out of the listening and bridging that I do.

At YDS, I have a certain amount of fluidity that allows me to not be pegged into a category of a specific social group.  Seldom do I hang out with the same people on a consistent basis.  I have loose friend-groups and also individual relationships, but I see myself as a free bird who flies solo but not alone.

The story of my life is still being written, and today's blog post is just one narrative that I have constructed to make sense of it all.

*Read one of the many descriptions of personality types here: http://www.personalitypage.com/INFP.html.
And if you're curious about what you might be, take one version of the test here: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp