[Alvel]

Hello INFJ's. I'm facing what many of the people here seem to have felt at one point or another of not belonging and not knowing where to direct my life. On my first concern, I'd have to say that regardless of the group, so far, even though I pretty much get along with anyone, I haven't found people I actually feel at home with (including family). I know I am not alone and it's not that I'm uncomfortable, but I do not feel the closenes I've heard others have with friends in their group (is it because I don't think highly of them?). Has anyone here ever felt part of a group? And if they did what kind of group was it? How did you find this group? Did it occur naturally? Has anyone found a, or the place they are capable of calling home? Is it a place, a thing or a person? Is finding the person special to you that'll give you intimacy, care, and understanding what finally fulfills your life? Is finding the hobby you can put your whole mind into the answer? What would any of you say is something I'd be happy and satisfied to devote myself to? Is it just that I haven't met the right people? Are my expectations too high? Won't my life pass if I take too long to lower the bar? How long should I wait?

I've been pondering on this for some time now and thought that it would be constructive to know what others similar (perhaps if only a bit) to me think regarding this. I know these are many questions but I'd be happy to understand. As a side note: I become anxious whenever I think of how my life might just pass if I don't actively search for that place or person to belong to, thus the reason I am making this thread.

 

[Alexsommer]

I'm not an infj but I still have the same thoughts as you, and I think it is so because we are intuitive which make us the minority of the population.

It's like being a Frenchman in Japan. One likes to talk his own language but is forced to talk, behave and think like a Chinese. And even though he meets an another Frenchman in China, the likelihood of them becoming a intimate "family" is still pretty low, though the likelihood of them becoming friends is high since they have a major thing in common. I guess the more you have something in common with others, the more you'll like em. But there's a lot of other factors in play then that.

How old are? I think that for many intuitve types puberty is hell, but a paradise for sensory types, and vice versa after it. Young people appreciate the concrete and psychical aspect of life, older people are bored with it and are interested in everything else just like intuitive types. So I guess you could cut life in to phases, and intuitive types and their abilities is a lot more appreciated in the "second part of life" and you'll automatically get a lot more respect and love.

( For some reason I'm thinking about the bible and how misunderstood it is, I'm a Pantheist and I don't know why I had to say that )

peace!


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[StElmosDream]

Not yet at almost 28, finding that I often talk and think above peers life expectations in every area except career aspirations (as a postgraduate student seeking to specialise after this degree). Regarding home, family, and friends purpose and life meaning has always been tied to career prospects when people supposedly spend 60% of their life working.

 

[TxWolves]

I found my home.. partially created it with some substantial help.. married with children. I am trusted, admired, and loved. I have security, friendship, and happiness. Maybe that longing to belong is what would drive you to start your own family. Just a thought.

 

[Jamie.Ether]

I can relate. I used to be upset by this feeling. Now, sometimes I think "The world is my home."
Really, I believe we are spiritual beings temporarily living on a physical plane. In that way, I don't believe any of us are ever "home", and maybe some of us are just more aware of that.
After searching so long for this imaginary "home", I realized that I don't actually want to find it.
My home is internal and eternal.

 

[chanteuse]

Owning a piece of real estate is not having a home or a significant achievement in life. Take it from a real estate professional with 25 years in the business who has seen it all (my area is where Hollywood A/B/C listers and movers and shakers live).

Home is where you feel comfortable and belong. It is a place you can afford and sustain, be it owning or renting. It's your personal heaven to let the world out and let the guard down.

Having retirement nest eggs is far more important. It can be in a form of real estate, stocks and mutual funds, or cash under mattress. The purpose is to give you option and a safety net. We are long range planners therefore less likely to buy into consumerism. Live under your mean and stash away extra. In your later life you have the option to retire early or a career change.

Health is paramount, too. Health care bankrupt many middle and old age ppl. Take care of your body and mind. Your life's walk will be much more pleasant and easier.

As for love, I wish you the best of luck. We can improve to be near perfect but it's not a fail proof way to meet the one. If you never met a person you care to spend the rest of your life with, so be it.

 

[Metalize]

I don't believe that you'll ever feel at home somewhere, or find just the right group of friends, BEFORE you're absolutely comfortable with yourself and your current place in life. I think your own idea, pursuing a hobby passionately, is on the right track but you'll need to fix the foundation first. What don't you like now? What can you do to fix it? Why do you think another setting/person can fix it while you can't? What are you missing, exactly? None of us can tell you what to devote your life to (a very limiting concept to me personally - I refuse to constrain my potential like that.) There's nothing wrong with just living to pursue whatever you're interested in at the moment, assuming you're also doing enough to sustain yourself in life. *

It's one matter to get out of a situation you don't like. It's quite another to wait for something/someone to come along and fix what you don't like about your life, or just take away your ennui, drudgery with everyday living. Only you can do that, but once you do, you can expect that the right people will naturally gravitate to you. And even though it will add a nice touch to your life, you'll find that it won't make a significant difference, because everything you needed was right here all along.

*One thing about different places. Traveling and spending some time in other countries among different people can make help refine your perspectives and understanding of where you are, and where you're heading.

Edit: My entire life, I felt "far from home", in an abstract spiritual sense of not belonging on Earth. Like these are not my people and I will never belong here, no matter what I do, and everyone knows it.

But I've accepted that in the time I'm "here" on this planet, I should live to the best of my ability. I don't have to take up extreme sports or abandon my less-than-practical pursuits, but there's nothing wrong with me making a place for myself to pass the time in a meaningful and enjoyable way. I am here now, and I owe it to myself to at least acknowledge/respect that.

We will be dust and ash in less than a blink of the universe... no point wasting away in longing.

 

[ideaL]

I have no home, and these thoughts weigh down on me as well. I've found it useful to determine whether finding that perfect connection is the key to your ability to feel content and happy in life. The answer for me was no, it was not important. I searched for that perfect connection because I felt so dehumanized by the way that others from my childhood and adolescence analyzed and critiqued me, so I inadvertently adopted that way of measuring others to an extent. If it really is important to find that person, give it a shot and go search for that person. You may or may not find that person. Also, searching for that does not have to be the only thing in life.

My advice is to lower the bar a bit, but not completely doing away with the whole apparatus! There is a risk in waiting for that right person or people to come into our lives, and what we envision in our dreams may never arrive. I've begun to let people take a step into the house, and in the back of my mind I'm still looking for that special person who I can give the keys to. Okay, horrible analogy but I hope you get what I'm trying to say haha.

 

[SuperlativelySweet]

I'm terribly homesick for a place that I'm unsure of where it is or if it even exists. Maybe it used to be but it's been torn down? I should probably rebuild it myself, but whats a home if you're all alone in it? Wheres the heart? I can be my own heart sure, but another beating heart isn't a bad thing. Haha, two hearts are better than one, yes? :- )

I feel the same; that anxiety, that sense of urgency to find. I may feel young inside forever but our physical lives don't go on for that long ;- (

I'm going out there into the world and searching, I think of it as an adventure.
I've been alone a long time now but soon enough I won't be. And I'm not looking for anything big or fancy, yet it's not something that's so easy to get a hold of; it's elusive even for those who think they've found it. I've thought of "lowering the bar", but I can't do that. I put out what I like to receive, so it's reasonable to expect it. And I mean this when it comes to everything in life.
I dunno, hope I made sense :/

 

[Matt The Martian]

My home is where I am at. I've never been too particular. As a matter of fact, I'm just at that point in my life where the idea of settling down somewhere forever seems unbearable. One thing that I learned in life is that people come and go for the most part. The people who stand the test of time are the people I guess you could say I'm the most at home with. It's great to feel the nostalgia that just comes naturally when you're around them. I think I'm "home" when I'm with my family and old friends. It doesn't really have much to do with a physical location; it just has more to do with the feeling that I have.

 

[Resolution]

There are some very interesting replies here. I especially like @Alexsommer 's "Frenchman in Japan" analogy, though I think you swapped Japan for China halfway through, dude ;D

Last year, I had an intense feeling as you describe, OP. I was a substitute teacher, and I was genuinely miserable.

"You could be a professor" my friends and family would tell me, pointing to my academic record. But I couldn't do it. Buttering up colleagues, being dictatorial to kids who didn't even want to learn, dressing up in a suite or a button up every day to "look the part" and I felt like I was suffocating. Each day was painful. I made it work, but my enthusiasm and energy bled right out of me over a period of months.

Now, I am working as a line cook, and I am much, much happier, hanging out with new friends, writing fanfiction, and learning to program on the side. I am making far less money, but it doesn't matter. I feel at home.

My dad keeps telling me that with "my brain" I need to be a professional. And I keep telling him that with my spirit, I need my integrity, to live a life that is fitting with who I am at the core.

 

[Endless Rainbows]

33 and still looking for my tribe. Not into the suburban life and buying a house and white picket fence and 2.5 kids. Have many friends but no real group so to speak. Have this deep loneliness at times for finding people like me, somewhere to belong. It is what happens when one exists at the borders? Too conservative for some and too wild and out there for others and judged straight out by some.

Perhaps a significant other and building a life with them is all there is to it? One shouldn't be so greedy but still one dreams about a community? For now I build my career and I give myself in service as that does make me feel happy and my life is worth something even if I never find my tribe.

 

[Caged Within]

The dream of home died long ago, with someone I used to know. Its tomb be built with bittersweet memories, with whispers of a promise forgotten, echoing back and forth across its decrepit walls. In my mind, I set flowers, wishing that grand new beginnings will bloom, but I'm again left soaked under the cover of a cloud of the darkest hue. It emits such a gloom, that try as I might to hide, the droplets of words better left unsaid, once hidden in its fetid breast, sting too terrible and true. I'm weak. A fake. A mistake. Broken and shaken from what I've been forced to take. A tool. Cruel. A wretch. A fool. Drenched in the regrets for my past sins, committed by a spirit too dimwitted to admit that loneliness is one burden he can't carry all the way through. My heart is a graveyard, where I bury hopes of what could have been me and you. In between all my fights, and these seemingly endless times where I stay up at night, a part of me has died. I can't look at myself in the mirror right, for you used to comment incessantly on how you liked these eyes, this chin, these lips that spilled lies. I'm yet another lost soul, destined to roam this accursed Earth alone. If there still be mercy left in Heaven, please let me try to pick up the pieces, and seek what a damaged scumbag can manage as an honest life.

 

[Bovine]

When you think you've found "yourself" you're essentially dead. Life is a journey, not a destination. Why do you think most marriages end in divorce and people have mid-life crises? That's what happens when reality shatters the illusions you've built up. Most careers, relationships, long-term plans, etc. are merely illusions of safety and happiness. These thoughts come from a place of fear and thus they will never make you happy. Live in the present moment and be true to yourself, because that's all you'll ever have. If you live for the future you'll spend your whole life in waiting. Get a job, get a spouse, buy a house, have kids, send them to college, have grandchildren, retire, and then die. And it's not that those things are bad, it's just that most people spend so much time waiting for the next thing that they don't even live. Home is here and home is now. It always has been and it always will be.

 

[reveur]

I dreamed about home for so long that I'm done with that. So now I don't stay at the same place for long. I am not "nesting" anywhere. It's a kind of an ascetic life.

 

[AriesLilith]

Ever since I was little, I've felt that I was different from others. I just don't seem to be interested in the normal things or blend in the groups easily. I was that weird kid, introverted with her own world.

But as I grow up, and after having immigrated, I've found some friends with whom I could share similar interests. I also found things in common with people, which made me feel a bit more belonging. Also, my relationship with my family got better so we are closer now.
Yet I still feel different than average people. It's not like it makes me feel special and such, it rather makes me feel inadequate, alone and different. Although it's not something that troubles me much, I have self esteem, but it just feels like lacking similar people around and some people might think that I'm weird or introverted or boring.

Thought I have home, which is where my husband is. I feel at ease and can be myself here. I also can call home where my family is. They don't fully get me but they accept me and love me. I also am happy with them.

 

[Alvel]

Thank you for you answers. I wanted an idea of possible paths I could take that would fulfill me. It's not that I don't like much what I already have, but I've found it stale and want more :/ . I've decided to leave relationships on second place for now and simply learn and study what I enjoy (as Metasentient suggested. Or ordered. Whichever - -d). Hopefully in doing this I'll meet others like me whom I can feel I am part of, or whom I can adore. I would like to enjoy many aspects of life such as a relationship, great jobs and learn all manners of languages. I can be happy with or without intimate ones. So if I don't meet anyone, well, that was just one side I didn't get to experience. It's not like just because I haven't experience something I can't understand it, so I won't have missed much after all. Thanks again all for your answers and comments.