[NexT]

Is something wrong with me?

Apparently, according to the world... this is what I should be doing.


1) Constantly helping around my Home
2) Studying to be oh so successful in school
3)A bunch of other aesthetic things I should change[my looks]


What I am doing...
1) I do things around the Home when I've worked out when and how I should do it. I dislike people being in the house when I am cleaning, because it really, really pisses me off when people have a comment of some sort on how I am cleaning, and if I don't do it 'completely'. My mother and family have left on several occasions and those times I did indeed clean far better than when I am pushed to do so. But the thing is, I am constantly pushed to 'clean' and take out the garbage, and wash dishes. I know my Mom is sickly and the like but shes not completely helpless. And then I have a nephew in the house which does considerably more than me, but unlike him. I don't >robotically< do something when I'm told to, regardless of the figure issuing the order. It's like... the more I'm pushed the less I wish to do it, the less I'll even think about it, it'll become a totally irrelevant factor to me. I shut it out whenever its pushed onto me, this is bad because everything is pushed onto me, so I shrug it all off and that means messy stuff alot of the time. Yeah, I'm kinda anti-authority... Or am I just a spoiled child?

2) School is a joke, the people I'm around are inferior, I'm not making friends [none whatsoever, ForeverAlone status right now.] This work is menial, boring and below mediocre... It's horrible. I've got to be interested and engaged to do School Work [nope, you're not learning in School (high school)... you're just working for nothing IMO.] ... School isn't engaging enough. It's boring as all hell, and it's stressing to be around these same-type people who do nothing but act obnoxious and ignorant and further lower the publics opinion of minorities... Why would I wanna be around that~ Fuckin' dullards.

3) This is rather incredibly personal, and a core issue, If you're interested enough, you can message me. I'm not going to bawl about it here in public...too embarassing.


I'm starting to think I have no issue, but there is an issue arising.

The issue of societys values and expectations crushing in on my own.

Problem is, I won't let Society decide what I value and "need" to do.

Fuck others, I got my own things I need to sift through... I love you, earth population... but you suck...so don't tell me what I should be doing, when you can't even sort out your own issues.

 

[Paradigm]

Apparently, according to the world... this is what I should be doing.

1) Constantly helping around my Home
2) Studying to be oh so successful in school
3)A bunch of other aesthetic things I should change[my looks]

1) Like you, I tend to not do things exactly when told. But I will do it if someone asks nicely, rather than just ordering me to. There has to be a reason, not just "it doesn't look good" or something like that. I do try to help out (without being asked) when I can, though.

2) High school was very boring, yes! I graduated with a 2.1 GPA, so I obviously didn't try much. Sadly, you can't do much about the requirement to attend. My advice is to at least make sure you graduate the first time around. If you want to go to university, try to get/keep your GPA high enough so they (might/probably) accept your application. I scored fairly high on the ACT, but it turns out that can't be a saving grace.

3) Just ignore the people who say that. They're idiots, really. Girls who go natural are much prettier than those who dress themselves up :happy:

But the thing is, I am constantly pushed to 'clean' and take out the garbage, and wash dishes. I know my Mom is sickly and the like but shes not completely helpless.

I ask how tough it is for her to do these things. Both could be considered heavy lifting (depending on one's strength) and very, very tiring. You're right, she's not helpless, but is she asking to help herself feel better (by being less tired/exhausted) or is she asking "just because?"

I don't know the situation, so feel free to ignore the above. If it applies, though, it's something to keep in mind.

 

[brady]

1) Constantly helping around my Home
2) Studying to be oh so successful in school
3)A bunch of other aesthetic things I should change[my looks]

@NexT Hilarious btw!

I think you should try a little harder to see the good side of the people around you. I used to shut myself out (and still do to a large extent) since the people around me seemed so lame. But they aren't going to change, I've found, so unless you find a core group of really swell people it might be hard for you to keep from feeling lonely.

As for the chores stuff I'm always being told by someone (room mate, mom, whatever) that I'm not doing something properly. This rubs me the wrong way too, probably because I feel like they just like being in charge and telling me what to do. This is an individualistic impulse (e.g. you worry about you and I'll worry about me) that I think is healthy. Same goes for how you present yourself in public. But again, and especially with women, most people make judgements about you based upon how you look, your hair, what you're wearing, etc. It's just a painful reality, but I would say definitely don't compromise yourself where you don't think you have to.

 

[Mei]

Gosh.. these kind of threads do bring back memories for me.

Well, my ESFJ mother used to nag me all the time, and obviously I never saw it from her viewpoint. She also took her anger out on her kids too. Well, you know the personality type.. instead of asking, the anger or the authorative personality doesn't move me in any way. I used to help around the house cos my INTJ dad put it into a different perspective for me. If person did ABC, then another person should do XYZ. I never knew why he said that, but it seemed fair to me. (In hindsight, it followed Confucious values, and everyone followed this to some extent, and I feel happy about it, cos I do feel part of something big and loving as well.)

You should't see it as being controlled in that way, but to also negotiate too. Cos I never found a way to verbalise my inner voice externally. I could've negotiated, but instead, I just followed it stupidly like a good Asian girl should ! I realised how I am, when I used to just wash ALL the dishes in my dormitory cos I lived with 13 girls, and we used to bicker ALL the time. What I used to do was to wash everything, and said the cleaners did it. This settled all the arguments in the dorm, and people were genuinely more polite then. I think it took one or two girls a while to figure out that it wasn't the cleaners who did this, but it was someone from the floor. I think it does show that, all it takes is for someone to genuinely do something with care to others, to then reciprocate the care in return. Cos I did not have to do this.

Even now my older brother tell me off on some things, cos I live with him, and I stand up for myself and say boldly, "I used to do this for a period of time, until you start to mess my cleaned area up time and time again, so I stopped, and got slobby and became worst than you to prove a point !" He never saw it that way though, and he obviously never even considered how his action was on the others... so... All you can do is to ignore the comments, and how it was delivered, and ask your true self whether you do love your parent enough to do the cleaning, cos if you did, then that is all that matters. If you can't do the cleaning as scheduled, then just be bold enough to schedule another time to do it. I could never face up to the people who shouts, but in fact, I should. I absolutely should. I should not have to live in fear all the time...

 

[Aelthwyn]

On the cleaning thing I know just how you feel. I hate when people watch me doing something, I feel like they're evaluating how good I am, and it's suuuper annoying. I tend to get my cleaning urges at night, when other people are asleep. But that was always an issue with my mom because somehow she seemed to need to see me doing something to feel satisfied that I'd done it, rather than just noting that it had been done. Well, I think she did notice when things were done, but it didn't connect properly in her brain into "Chore was done by my industrious and loving daughter". Because she didn't see me do it, she didn't attribute the quality of 'responcible' or 'thoughtfull' to me as easily as she would have if she'd seen me do it.

I'm going to venture a guess that that's the real issue here - ultimately it's not how much you do around the house, it's whether your family perceives you to be a thoughtfull and usefull person. If they don't think you are responcible, simply changing how much or when you do chores probably isn't going to be enough to change that. I think the main issue comes down to the curse of the INFP - we all seem to have a slightly different set of values than what is popularly held by people around us. This becomes apparent in many many little things, as well as the more obvious things, and I think it earns us a reputation very early on of not being a modle person. This is a hard assumption to grow under and to fight off. No we are not the modle person that society wants everyone to be. So we have to really work at convincing others that not only are there more types of valuable people than the one society admires most, but that our paticular type of person is indeed worthwhile. Sometimes this may be impossible.

It's not necessarily that you don't do enough chores, but that's an easy thing to fix upon to criticize you about. If you were doing other things that they felt were worthwhile they probably wouldn't hassle you about how much housework you were doing, but because they don't have a clear idea of exactly what else they feel you ought to be spending your time on, only that somehow you're not being a very usefull person overall in life (according to their interests and priorities) they choose chores as a kind of icon representative of The Responcible Person, and make their claims about you not measuring up in relation to that. At least that seems to be what I observe among people and their responce to others who aren't on the same page as them. People naturally assume others who have different values than themselves are wasting their time, and some people feel it is their duty stop others from wasting time.

As meek and accomodating and non-confrontational as we may be, INFPs are very much individualists at heart and the attempts of others to control us is hard to bear. It seems that particularly for us, we experience such attempts as attacks on our inner being, because we try to live in accordance to our deeply held values and ideals. By trying to make us follow someone else's plan they essentially make us try to be someone we are not - and because being authentic is usually among those deep INFP values this is a HUGE issue. I think the ideal of authenticity is behind much of our inner rebelious feelings, because even if someone directs us to do something we would have chosen to do on our own, the fact that someone else 'told us to' brings into question the authenticity of the action - it doesn't feel like it's our own action anymore, but more like we are acting as proxy, carrying out someone else's will, rather than orriginating our own actions. So it feels fake. More than that, telling us what to do feels like robbing us of our personal vital life and trying to make us into 'drones'. We resent that deeply, and therefore fight against being commanded. In fact, we fight against anyone's desire for who they want us to be because it doesn't feel like they are letting us be ourselves. - Which is the point of life, isn't it?

It's not a completely conscious thing, I think. But it seems to me that in many INFPs I see this inner half-conscious struggle going on against the world and other people's expectations of them. I say half conscious because although most of us are conscious of this pertaining to certain issues, I think it extends to more things than we think about, making it both an unconscious thing hovering behind our personality as well as something we think about and argue with people about. It doesn't take much actual pressure to make us feel squished and stiffled and beset by others. The mere intuitive feeling that they want you to be different, that they want you to act a different way feels like a command, in some sense, to aquiesce to their will not yours - an implication that your will isn't right or doesn't matter. Our desire for harmonious relationships especially compells us to heed other's desires, so we are set up for quite an internal struggle - to please others or to be authentic. Sometimes these seem mutually exclusive when others aren't pleased with our authentic selves. I think there does have to be some give and take in regards to this, but just how much is a difficult decision.

I think Ps in general tend to feel a lot of pressure to get with the J program - to check off tidy lists, to get things organized, to be on time, to observe scheduals and plans and duties, etc. And while sometimes those things are necessary and we can be irresponcible about them (probably NPs in particular who don't seem to pay much attention to the world outside their head) I don't think we're all as irresponcible as is often implied. I think we may have a sense of responcibility for things that we don't even realise we take responcibility for just because it's not on society's official list of duties. An example might be that getting somewhere 'on time' is near the top of the list of 'official duties' and this often causes people to be rude, do a less than quality job on something, ignore safety precausions, ignore health concerns, etc. But they are rewarded openly for getting somewhere on time while the shortcomings that allowed them to be on time are overlooked. But if they were to hold their responciblilty to act in a safe and courteous manner higher than their responcibility to arrive on time they would, in our society, be ridiculed, even though they really were being responcible - just for something else.

So that is something to stop and think about. What do you take responcibility for? I think it's important for us to remind ourselves what we are good for, even when other people seem to think we're good for nothing. This might also help us to have something to say when our values and time spent are criticized.

 

[snail]

Is something wrong with me?

Apparently, according to the world... this is what I should be doing.


1) Constantly helping around my Home
2) Studying to be oh so successful in school
3)A bunch of other aesthetic things I should change[my looks]

1. It is much easier to do chores alone than while being observed and criticized, and to do then when we have the energy instead of when someone else demands. If everything gets done that needs to get done, how or when we go about it shouldn't matter. If we make messes outside of our own rooms (which are our own territory), and if those messes are a bother to those who share our space, we should clean those messes. Other than that, we have no obligation.

2. School is a boring, miserable waste of time. We should be allowed to test out of it.

3. Nobody ever has any business telling you what you "should" look like. There is no right or wrong way to look, because the body is a value-neutral object. How you use your body to accomplish good or evil is important, but what you look like is irrelevant.