Please Don't Misunderstand Me

     I have always been a fan of the Myers-Briggs Temperament Indicator. For those unfamiliar with this test, it is a tool to gain insight how you and your significant others relate to the world around you. Unlike other psychological tests, this one reveals how you operate within your surrounding environment and is not couched in good or bad terms. The power in it lies with providing information on how you interact based on your temperament scores: are you introverted or extroverted, intuitive or sensing, thinking or feeling, judging or perceiving. These scores define who you are, what your needs are, what are some of your challenges, and how to ameliorate how your type interacts with the other fifteen types. You can easily find this test online-it only takes about 20 minutes to answer the ninety questions in the abridged version.

    Years ago I used Myers-Briggs frequently, when I was I Vocational Rehab Consultant, trying to find compatible employment for my caseload of injured workers. The vocational application of this test took weeks off discovering how my injured workers would work with me, what would motivate them to return to work, and how to inspire them to reenter the workforce in another vocation. I credit it with making me on of the top five Vocational Rehab Consultants for my stats on returning people to work.

    On a personal level, knowing your temperament enables you to understand how similarly and differently you collaborate with your world. For example, I am an Introverted, Intuitive, Thinker, with Judging. Even though I appear extroverted to the world, I need a fair amount of alone time to process internally my outside persona. Being an Intuitive Thinker allows me to cut through the red tape of crap, see the immediate solutions or the strategies needed for such, and uncannily read how others will either help or hinder progress.  Here is a far more comical description of INTJ I found off the internet:

“INTJ: The outside contractor

INTJs are solid, competent personalities who may seem aloof and even arrogant, but who are typically highly skilled in any field which interests them. INTJs are confident in their skills and knowledge, self-assured, and imaginative; their exceptional problem-solving skills make them ideal architects, auto mechanics, and tools of the evil empire. While it requires the driving will to conquer of an ENTJ to imagine the Death Star and the evil genius of an ENTP to invent its devastating weapons systems, the skill and technical prowess of the INTJ is what makes the whole thing work.

The INTJ sees life as a problem to be solved. For that reason, the INTJ is the person a company brings in from the outside to streamline production processes and identify redundant assets for termination. The INTJ's combination of analytical problem-solving skills and complete and utter disregard for the morality or consequences of his actions also make him ideal for the job of hatchet man, CIA operative, and helpdesk operator.
RECREATION: INTJs are often baffled by the strange and incomprehensible recreational rituals of other people, such as going to parties, watching television, and having sex. Instead, they prefer to spend their leisure time installing twin missile launchers in their cars to deter tailgaters and playing chess with megalomaniac CEOs of any corporation.
COMPATIBILITY: Silly person, INTJs don't have relationships! They may, however build their own friends.”

    Well said. Yes, we INTJs are the power behind the throne. People underestimate our surgical strategic ingenuity and depth of commitment. INTJs are the Masterminds, Field Marshals, Scientists, Organizers, and the Planners of the Myers-Briggs universe. However, we are sorely deficient in the facility of propagating romance and love. Rationality and compartmentalization consistently fails to make the top ten in the list of what most lovers are seeking. Though we are almost psychically adroit in reading people and situations, we are amazingly amaurotic when it comes to the nuisances of courtship.

    What started me on my journey for companionship was my electronic liaison with a cogent former university professor who left academia for crafting artisan beer. When his INTJ collided with mine, solar ejections emanated from our communications. But solar ejections can also fry electrical grids, leaving one powerless. Buried under all the intellectualizing, INTJs can unknowingly walk around with full body armor. Nothing can enter or exit. Sometimes though, we do forget to wear our bullet proof vest. The intellectual intimacy INTJs are craving does not always translate well to emotions. Here’s to those sure shot snipers who persist in believing we are more than just our brains.