Hiking - Need some Me-time

Good Morning Blog,

Weekend again! :D Love the weather during the first few months of the year and also a good time to do some self-reflection upon myself. It might come as a boring post.

Perfect morning today

JH and EK wanted to go for breakfast but I insisted to have a short hiking before meeting them and JH wanted to join me to have a relax hike. Why not?

Drink up again. I could make a theme from this.

Time to change my bag back to my water bag from Decathlon. Thank you my blue mini bag, we covered so many journey together.

These days I felt so demotivated... perhaps it was due to some issues.

I think I was rather drained over some excess amount of unhelpful advice I received as an INFJ.

Wow! Clear weather :) Feeling so peaceful.

To summarise, I received unhelpful advice quite often, mainly from people who think they understand me and know me better than I know myself. It is kind of draining especially towards INFJ, as this group of personality group is usually the easily misunderstood/difficult to understand. By the way, I am not saying they are not helping or I hate them; I am just saying that it is not easily to share or able to let others understand what we think or how we feel.

Let me quote one recent example - “You need to socialize more. It isn’t healthy to be alone all the time.”

Honestly, they are not wrong in any sense or their perspective. But that advice may seem as the "be more extroverted" kind, which only applicable to extroverts. This advice doesn't understand what an introvert truly is and believe if that works for them, that works for everyone else, that is anecdotal! In extroverts’ minds: “Socializing gets me energized so it must get them energized.”

Sometimes, It hurts me to be misunderstood because I don't have all the words to explain what I am. I didn't choose to be but I do my best to be "extrovert" if required but just not 24/7. If the setting required me to know some people, I will try to know some people but I don't see it as I need to go around to know anyone else like bees farming for honey. There is a difference between being shy and unconfident and being an introvert.

Oh! JH had arrived earlier. Sorry for keeping you waiting.

As an INFJ, we tend to be as genuine as much as we can and at the same times, we show ourselves to people slowly. Layer by layer, like an onion. As they peel an INFJ's layer at the time, each layer will make them tear but still wanted to explore further - that shows a lot from others. I won't want people to jump into conclusion by jumping those, because as an INFJ, there is no limit to what we truly are. If they peeled to the last layer of INFJ and nothing is there, they will never understand the most important stuff like the taste, smell, colour, chemical and process of this INFJ onion.

(Thanks JH for helping) I guess only Mr Sun and Mother Nature knows me well. There is one more killer advice by others - "Your idea is weird/childish/naive. Other people also do the RIGHT thing, why don't you change yourself first?"

(Thanks JH for helping) Recently I knew a potential girl and I felt not connected with her because I felt we are on two separate life goal and vision. I can't say that she is wrong and right. In general point of view, she has ALL THE RIGHT to pursuit whatever she likes but I also have mine too. For me, I am looking for a life partner who shares same vision with.

As a long run, one fine day if we are together... who can guarantee that won't become an issue? I can just leave one another as whoever we are, but who will suffer? Yes, many people will think that I am just too stubborn or negative towards her or marriage. But I also see many had failed, suffered and succeeded; so don't paint high hope and expect it will happen ideally.

(Thanks JH for helping) Oh well... Perhaps you are right that maybe I was defeated by the relationship and stuff. Honestly, it is not just relationship that I am talking about. I just got rather tired towards advices which come from anecdotal people.

A Me-time is my healing time. I found a quote from quora which sums up why we INFJs get the unhelpful advice: “Introverts have a different way of thinking. Since they are so highly stimulated, introverts do their best thinking in their heads, while extroverts think out loud to other people. The world is designed around the extroverted mentality, so many social and work environments are group focused.”

I am not hating extroverts, I appreciate them. I just need them to take time to understand the world, the truth, or even us introverts properly. You know... Even introverts may not even understand other introverts... What left is those who dare to approach and talk to us, so your advice will seem more louder than other introverts can give, and perhaps may also need to be smooth and able to catch up with how our active mind is.

Jeff