CC2: Answering a lot of questions

I haven't blogged here for several days, for a couple of reasons. Mostly it's that I'm less inclined to write when I'm not suffering, and I've been working hard on leaving my career dissatisfaction to God and coping with the suffering (but not denying it!). That seems to be going relatively well.

Likewise, moving forward with the counseling has really helped. I still have issues, and indeed, the counseling is only confirming my impression that I'm not in the right career! But at least I don't feel so desperate to make something positive happen right away. I feel more inclined to trust that I can wait it out, because I know there's a plan in place to improve things. Some of my fellow Christian friends might see that need for a plan as a lack of faith. Perhaps.

And finally, despite the inadequate feedback where I work, I've gotten better at picking up on small bits of positive feedback. That makes me feel better about myself and feel valued here. Even though it really isn't a good long-term fit, it's a lot better for people like me to go to work every morning when we feel valued.

So then... about the career counseling.

I had session #2 yesterday, and to be honest it was more about Debbie reading my results to me than anything. I took the Meyer-Briggs Type Indicator, the Strong Interest Inventory, and the 16PF. I come out as:

• An INFP on the MBTI (strongly iNtuitive and weakly Introverted, moderate on the other two).
• SAE on the Strong
• I can't tell you what on the 16PF, but it certainly makes me sound emotionally unstable.

One of my favorite contrasts is that the 16PF gives me low potential for leadership (3 of 10), but one of the others indicates strong leadership potential. I think that reflects my ambiguous view of leadership: I love to motivate others to a common goal, but only if it's an authentic goal. I have no inclination whatsoever to be a bureaucratic middle manager, or for that matter senior manager.

I've been reading up on INFPs. I love this INFP profile from Typelogic. However, this one from personalitypage pissed me off with this graf:

INFPs do not like to deal with hard facts and logic. Their focus on their feelings and the Human Condition makes it difficult for them to deal with impersonal judgment. They don't understand or believe in the validity of impersonal judgment, which makes them naturally rather ineffective at using it. Most INFPs will avoid impersonal analysis, although some have developed this ability and are able to be quite logical. Under stress, it's not uncommon for INFPs to mis-use hard logic in the heat of anger, throwing out fact after (often inaccurate) fact in an emotional outburst.

However, the more I think about it (and about how MBTI defines "thinking" versus "feeling"), the more I realize why I'm so challenging. I'm not a typical F! To the contrary, I'm very good at logical thought. I just grow less enamored of it with each year of life experience, so I value logic only in situations that call for it. I think I come up F because I'm becoming more of a person who values feeling, even thought I'm still very capable of thinking.

In fact, I think this cuts to the heart of why it took them so long to diagnose me with ADHD. I've always done superbly in school, whereas most people like me can't focus on school. I guess it's a great reminder that four letters don't define who I am. It does remind me of my evil plan, with my best friend in college, to blow up the Greek system and replace it with 16 co-ed frats based around the MBTI.

In other news, a friend sent me a link to a careers-related blog, which led me to this fascinating NYT article about law and medicine being less prestigious than they used to be. It's a great point; in general our society values stability less than in the past. Maybe I'm well-positioned to gain in prestige as a vagabond -- as if prestige meant that much to me anyway.