INFJ explained

As mentioned in a previous post, my Myers-Briggs type is INFJ. The initials come from Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling, Judging. Everyone agrees that this is the rarest psychological profile in the world (around 1-2% of the population) with women twice more than men. There is also an agreement on the fact that humans with this profile are misunderstood. In this post I will try to explain this misunderstood profile from my point of view.

INFJ people have an intense internal life. That can’t be observed from the outside. They look calm, and therefore people assume they are very cool inside. This difference makes INFJ people sometimes behave in a different way than other people would expect them. It is not that INFJ will surprise you in a bad or in a good way. They will be just different than what you think about them.

Because of their long-term thinking, INFJ can make predictions of how things will look in the future. It is not about guessing lottery numbers but rather making assumptions based on a system current state and the internal forces. Whether we talk about a political, economic, or social system.

INFJ’s most important value in life is love. This is why you can see this feeling mentioned in this blog. Love is something that resonates with such an individual and makes him go further in life. Casual relations are not possible for this type of people.

To give a personal example, more than twenty years ago when I had a problem one friend advised me to learn a poem. As you can imagine, learning a poem would not make any difference. It would not help my situation at all. Yet this was a turning point in my life as that recommendation was in line with my personality. I learned “Ballad of Reading Gaol” by Oscar Wilde. Of course, it was of no help in the short term, and I knew it. But in the long-term, it made a big difference for me.

Let me give another example. Pablo Neruda once said, “If nothing saves us from death, at least love should save us from life”. For an INFJ this sounds like an absolute truth, you just feel like that is powerful. For other humans, it is not. They can replace the word love in the above sentence with whatever motivates them: money, power, glory, etc.

INFJs genuinely care about other people and want to help them. They are glad of the success of other people. Envy is not part of their life.

INFJs avoid corrupt people or people who lie to them, for example. Often this avoidance is seen as a conflict by the other part. It is not a conflict, no hate or negative feelings are involved.

Because of their rich inner life, INFJs don’t drink coffee. In software companies, most people begin their day by drinking coffee. Instead, every morning I start by solving chess puzzles for a few minutes to get my brain up and running.

INFJ people do not talk about their personal life and what problems they might have. They never complain and give everything they have in relationships. They ask for nothing in return.

Music is an important component of INFJ life. You can see that most of my posts end with a musical moment. The music videos were not randomly chosen.

Every human being is different. A lot of the things that happen in our life are related to our previous experiences. Everyone is free to live their life as they want. However, some behavioral patterns do exist.

Why did I choose Banksy’s artworks for this post? We do not know who Banksy is, but I feel he is an INFJ. I found out that I am not even original in this opinion. Someone else already said that.

Banksy illustrates very well INFJ behaviors. He does unexpected things, he is misunderstood, he is very discreet about his life, has artworks about feelings, has a sense of humor. He is an idealist who does things and does not just talk about ideas.

Hoping that things are more clear now in case you’ll meet an INFJ somewhere in this world.