Keeping yourself happy?
Hello everyone,
I am a young INTJ, single(living on my own) and 19 years of age who has a hard time with the concept of keeping oneself happy. I know I don't need someone else to keep me happy. I have a hard time with this concept honestly, as obviously being young I don't have an incredible amount of cash at my disposal or anyone I'm close to living with or nearby. I listen to music, go for drives in my car, try attempts at humor on forums (4chan if anyone cares), blah.
It gets old fast I'll say that much, I've got some emotional wounds from growing up that may play some factoring.
Do I make any sense?
In short, advice time needed.
I am a young INTJ, single(living on my own) and 19 years of age who has a hard time with the concept of keeping oneself happy. I know I don't need someone else to keep me happy. I have a hard time with this concept honestly, as obviously being young I don't have an incredible amount of cash at my disposal or anyone I'm close to living with or nearby. I listen to music, go for drives in my car, try attempts at humor on forums (4chan if anyone cares), blah.
It gets old fast I'll say that much, I've got some emotional wounds from growing up that may play some factoring.
Do I make any sense?
In short, advice time needed.
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Hmm, have you tried finding a new hobby to keep yourself fulfilled?
If you don't mind me asking, what emotional wounds are you talking about?
If you don't mind me asking, what emotional wounds are you talking about?
New hobbies cost cash, cash is going to be decreasing in the next few months based on recent events with my car.
Emotional wound wise, a wrecked childhood and a substandard upbringing to keep it brief. :dry:
Something I wanted to add; I have a hard time keeping my motivation going honestly so don't recommend me to read any books.
Emotional wound wise, a wrecked childhood and a substandard upbringing to keep it brief. :dry:
Something I wanted to add; I have a hard time keeping my motivation going honestly so don't recommend me to read any books.
You need goals. Sit down and just start writing down things you want to accomplish, starting with whatever pops into your head.
Example:
eat lunch
dispose of that lunch in the toilet later
water my plants
chage out of this uncomfortable shirt
and just build upon that until you get to the point where you have reached within yourself and are beginning to list some things that were more subconscious. Finally it will get to the point where you feel like you are writing a rant, and not everything may nessisarily be something you need/want to get done, but when you have an idea that you've written enough, stop and browse the lower portion of the list. Find some long term goals there that were buried in your mind, and a few shprt term ones that you believe are importaint. Work toward these things methodically and fill your days with progress and expancion of knowledge and capability. (explore the city, learn to bake brownies. Girls like brownies.)
INTJ live is direction. without direction, an INTJ feels dead. You are at a point where you must face the position of making your own goals without someone telling/reminding you of what they think would be a good idea. Depressions always end. No depression is forever, and everyone goes through more than one in their life because life is not fair. take it with a grain of salt, and this will be what you look back on and see what you are truely made of when you may have felt you were at the bottom and in the dark.
Example:
eat lunch
dispose of that lunch in the toilet later
water my plants
chage out of this uncomfortable shirt
and just build upon that until you get to the point where you have reached within yourself and are beginning to list some things that were more subconscious. Finally it will get to the point where you feel like you are writing a rant, and not everything may nessisarily be something you need/want to get done, but when you have an idea that you've written enough, stop and browse the lower portion of the list. Find some long term goals there that were buried in your mind, and a few shprt term ones that you believe are importaint. Work toward these things methodically and fill your days with progress and expancion of knowledge and capability. (explore the city, learn to bake brownies. Girls like brownies.)
INTJ live is direction. without direction, an INTJ feels dead. You are at a point where you must face the position of making your own goals without someone telling/reminding you of what they think would be a good idea. Depressions always end. No depression is forever, and everyone goes through more than one in their life because life is not fair. take it with a grain of salt, and this will be what you look back on and see what you are truely made of when you may have felt you were at the bottom and in the dark.
I know exactly what you're talking about. At that age, I was pretty much in the same boat. I had cut off ties with my family, and I was living alone in a new and unfamiliar place. I also had the same coping methods... music and driving. Sometimes I would drive around all night because I loved how peaceful everything was at night without all the hustle of the daytime. I could listen to music, and just drive around seeing things without being bothered.
I am not sure what you can do to pull yourself out of the doldrums. What worked for me, ironically, was finding friends with whom I could relate. I have been lucky enough to find interesting people that I could spend time with, and learn from, which helped me mature and grow. I never needed a lot of friends and attention from other people, but having face time with people I found fun and interesting was very important for me to develop interests in things I would have never experienced otherwise.
The only answer I can conjure is to somehow connect with whatever it is you feel you're missing, and try to find a way to fill that void. Especially at that age, you probably would do well with a sexual partner, as well. Just don't get stuck in the aloneness and allow it deteriorate your mental health.
I am not sure what you can do to pull yourself out of the doldrums. What worked for me, ironically, was finding friends with whom I could relate. I have been lucky enough to find interesting people that I could spend time with, and learn from, which helped me mature and grow. I never needed a lot of friends and attention from other people, but having face time with people I found fun and interesting was very important for me to develop interests in things I would have never experienced otherwise.
The only answer I can conjure is to somehow connect with whatever it is you feel you're missing, and try to find a way to fill that void. Especially at that age, you probably would do well with a sexual partner, as well. Just don't get stuck in the aloneness and allow it deteriorate your mental health.
I probably can't honestly relate, since I've always known that I have *many* goals with enough variance that there are some I will reach quickly, and some I can only strive to reach. However, a lack of motivation in my experience stems from a lack of self-satisfying goals. Even without money though, I've always found a way to work on projects that work towards my goals. As someone else already said, I would start writing out all of your goals, immediate and future, important and frivolous, then start writing any possible means by you can you can achieve them.
As a side note, aare you sure you're an INTJ? Maybe my perspective/objective view of INTJs is skewed (feel free to corrrect me), however, I always thought INTJs had an immense thirst for knowledge, and will by introverted means do anything to get that knowledge. That doesn't sound like your current state of being. Maybe you've just got so many ideas and projects that you're not sure where to start? Maybe you think all of your hopes, ideas, and projects are unable to be funded properly so therefore are being put-off?
You seem intelligent enough to me. Sounds like you just need someone to give you a good ass-kicking to get your motors moving.
:tongue:
As a side note, aare you sure you're an INTJ? Maybe my perspective/objective view of INTJs is skewed (feel free to corrrect me), however, I always thought INTJs had an immense thirst for knowledge, and will by introverted means do anything to get that knowledge. That doesn't sound like your current state of being. Maybe you've just got so many ideas and projects that you're not sure where to start? Maybe you think all of your hopes, ideas, and projects are unable to be funded properly so therefore are being put-off?
You seem intelligent enough to me. Sounds like you just need someone to give you a good ass-kicking to get your motors moving.
:tongue:
Over the course of my testing through MBTI I've gotten INTJ consistently save for one instance where I scored INTP, however that was a few years ago. Based on what I've read from other INTJ members I can relate most to them on a personal basis, habits, etc. But like I said, I've got some emotional wounds so those can tend to make some of my lesser functions expose themselves more often than they would in a healthy INTJ.
INTJ's may have a thirst for knowledge, but it may not necessarily make us happier when we find it. In fact, I usually find it's the opposite. The sense of wonder goes, and a cynical impression is usually left. At points I have been left with the impression that there is little value in humanity. It's kind of cyclical. Wonder->Discover->Delve->Absorb->Loathe->Accept->Wonder. Or something like that. At least, that's what I've found in my reaction to studies of psychology, anthropology, sociology, philosophy, and politics. More hard topics like chemistry and physics might offer less disappointing results, and I can see why many INTJ's choose to go that route.
Some of the most important lessons you learn can be completely soul-crushing. But they can be highly liberating as well.
Some of the most important lessons you learn can be completely soul-crushing. But they can be highly liberating as well.
Ah this challenge...
The Happiness Project comes to mind as one of several different sites that may help assuming that you just wanted to be happy tempoarily.
Emotional Intelligence is another arena that may work as a topic to research further if you want to go down that rabbit hole. The idea here being that a combination of self-awareness, self-managment, social awareness and relationship building skills may help to improve your situation in life, but this is still something I'm exploring with mixed results.
Discovering your type can help give an idea of where to go, but there is a part that is on you to do too. For example, what does your Enneagram type tell you that you like to do and want to do in the world? What central challenge in your life are you having to overcome that may be holding you back? These are just things to explore and see what may work for you or may not. 5 is in my tri-type but not my initial result which is a 1w2. There are also other systems like "Strengths Finder 2.0" that may help you find your strengths and this may lead to what works for you. For example, does volunteering appeal to you? Some hobbies can be cheap and some sites like Meetup.com are ways to find others with a similar interest.
For finding motivation consider 3 things: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Since you control your life you have autonomy taken to its limit almost. Mastery is a bit trickier since this requires some more context to my mind, but as I love to learn this suits me well. Purpose is last but also one of the hardest to resolve. Why are you here and what do you want? I still struggle with the "What do you want?" so while I can offer suggestions, I don't have the silver bullet for you sorry.
"But Will It Make You Happy?" may also be interesting in regards to living simply that may or may not be useful for you.
The Happiness Project comes to mind as one of several different sites that may help assuming that you just wanted to be happy tempoarily.
Emotional Intelligence is another arena that may work as a topic to research further if you want to go down that rabbit hole. The idea here being that a combination of self-awareness, self-managment, social awareness and relationship building skills may help to improve your situation in life, but this is still something I'm exploring with mixed results.
Discovering your type can help give an idea of where to go, but there is a part that is on you to do too. For example, what does your Enneagram type tell you that you like to do and want to do in the world? What central challenge in your life are you having to overcome that may be holding you back? These are just things to explore and see what may work for you or may not. 5 is in my tri-type but not my initial result which is a 1w2. There are also other systems like "Strengths Finder 2.0" that may help you find your strengths and this may lead to what works for you. For example, does volunteering appeal to you? Some hobbies can be cheap and some sites like Meetup.com are ways to find others with a similar interest.
For finding motivation consider 3 things: Autonomy, Mastery, and Purpose. Since you control your life you have autonomy taken to its limit almost. Mastery is a bit trickier since this requires some more context to my mind, but as I love to learn this suits me well. Purpose is last but also one of the hardest to resolve. Why are you here and what do you want? I still struggle with the "What do you want?" so while I can offer suggestions, I don't have the silver bullet for you sorry.
"But Will It Make You Happy?" may also be interesting in regards to living simply that may or may not be useful for you.
You need to get out more. I don't mean socializing but just go to places of your interest.
You have a car and go for drives you mentioned. Why not find some place you find interesing first and make that a goal. Could be anything and it doesn't have to expensive. Visit a museum if that's of interest or go to some lecture or what ever you like. You will probably meet people there and have some conversations. That will be easy since it's about something of your interest.
The socializing part isn't actually important, what's important that you get food for thought. Just driving is only fun in the first couple of weeks after you got your first car. After that, it's just a means to an end.
You have a car and go for drives you mentioned. Why not find some place you find interesing first and make that a goal. Could be anything and it doesn't have to expensive. Visit a museum if that's of interest or go to some lecture or what ever you like. You will probably meet people there and have some conversations. That will be easy since it's about something of your interest.
The socializing part isn't actually important, what's important that you get food for thought. Just driving is only fun in the first couple of weeks after you got your first car. After that, it's just a means to an end.
Videogames are designed to keep your attention and can be great fun to play. I'm not sure that actually counts as happyness, although it doesn't make one unhappy. I certainly derived a lot of pleasure from it when I was your age.
I know you're not 21 yet, but the best advice I could ever give you is to never medicate your depression with alcohol. (You would think that it would be a no-brainer to not medicate depression with a depressant, but it still happens anyway.)
I would suggest trying really hard to save money. It's kind of fun after a while.
I would suggest trying really hard to save money. It's kind of fun after a while.
Take it one day at a time. I know INTJ's focus a lot on the future, but when you're feeling a little depressed the future can seem bleak and make your even more depressed. We get stuck and forget things wont be the same forever. Actually, I think socialising can help, because it's a distraction and keeps you from over-thinking all the time. Only socialize in a format that you enjoy though, otherwise it will be draining and make things worse. If you don't have any close friends to just hang out with at the moment, do what the other posters said and go to places that interest you, take your ipod with and play happy music. Don't sit at home watching infomercials and listening to depressing stuff. Don't sleep more than necessary just to pass the day, it's very bad for your mood. Go outside and get some sun.
Hope you feel better soon!
Hope you feel better soon!
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