Worthy Life Goals?

[Artsu Tharaz]

I'm constantly tortured by the fact that, to all reasonable measure, I fail to live up to my own potential. I know that there is so much I could be doing and could have already done, I know this both intellectually and I feel my distance from it, but as much as I want to think about it, I am at a loss for what to do. Normal goals, like get a job get married and so on seem the main thing that I have to aim for, but I know there is more, but what?

Whether my previous experiences - the stories and imaginary events that have occurred in my mind - truly had any real effect, or if it was purely confined to fantasy and to a transformation of myself that may have had much less effect than intended, they show to me that there is more to life, and I can truly say that at these times, life was seen as an important enough occurrence to keep me moving in some direction regardless of how scattered.

It is time to move on from that however - whatever was real about it, let it be known by itself, and let all future states more clearly show their truth, and to not lead me into troubled places that I cannot easily see the way out of. Let that which I am capable of come to be who I am, and let me gain the motivation to push on through the fatigue and lonesomeness towards a life of greatness as so I desire.

So what do I - do we, or anyone - have in life to make for ourselves? When we're so limited by the way things are, how do we overcome, and be more than what we are and closer to what we could be? How does life become meaningful - not just in the sense of self-satisfaction, but truly meaningful - and what happens when it becomes so?

What to do, what to do...

 

[TheManBeyond]

commiting a crime against let's say maduro, president of venezuela or even better to have commited the assasination of hugo chavez, previous legendary dictator of that country or any other big fish would mean also my death and the end of my freedom but i would remain as the guy who wrote some history on a big scale.
i just don't buy it. but the possibility is there for those who wanna try it..
since i am not a violent guy and i prefer peace, i decided i will give to the world my music. this is meaningful in a smaller scale and it is what fills me and gives me hope of evolving and become better and better. that's what i do. arts is where i like to be. not only music but a performace, an attitude, speech, words are powerful, images. thing is, how many will seem them and validate as cool, how many people will i make happy? i dunno, but i know that it makes me feel alive.
my 50 cents.
but you remainded me of a girlfriend i had who was not supposed to be tamed, she didn't want to get married (at that moment-) and she hoped for something else, bigger. she said she wanted to sleep with some big fish (taking adventage of her beautiness (she is damn gorgeous)) and kill him when he fell asleep. She was constantly looking for a fight, she wanted 3rd world war to start, she thought everything was so damn boring, she wanted to be war journalist.
And all of that is cool.
What i think is that every big thing needs violence, not violence in the sense of killing someone or war but perhaps internal violence, to be disconnected with outside, to feel fear. that kind of violence. anger. to be incomplete and lost.
Tons are living for no reason than to pay the rent amd they like it that way. I give u that.

 

[Haim]

In order to do things, one need to do things.
That is what I do as much as I can now, in my case games(and anything else I create), which will allow me in the feature to do more games.

 

[Pizzabeak]

Well they say find what you're interested in and just work at it. Each person has his or her own purpose and may not always be easy to find it. And you must believe there may be obstacles of any sort getting in way intentionally or not.

Maybe you need to practice some Tao or something similar. Find a path. Or the path. I don't know. I can't say for you. I don't think I can aid in any way. Don't take it from me.

Once you have something that brings you a sense of joy and you wish others had the same or something similar so they could be happy too, is when you know. It's just that something. It's so the world can be a potentially safer place.

These are perhaps ancient technique found in the Bible. Simple rules. I don't think it has to take all the fun away from things. But I think it seems to be a preparation for more concentration on the next era. In a way, but perhaps not.

All it takes is one initial step towards your goal to get started. It can be one small step a day. Go for it. Who knows, you may surprise yourself even. Society is designed to drag you down over other men. But it's just something that needs to be strengthened through.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

since i am not a violent guy and i prefer peace, i decided i will give to the world my music. this is meaningful in a smaller scale and it is what fills me and gives me hope of evolving and become better and better. that's what i do. arts is where i like to be. not only music but a performace, an attitude, speech, words are powerful, images. thing is, how many will seem them and validate as cool, how many people will i make happy? i dunno, but i know that it makes me feel alive.
my 50 cents.

I've got some aspirations to make music, but the main music I've created so far is just when I'm in the zone, improvising on the piano... and those sort of things aren't great for listening to the second time around. But I'd like to get an electric guitar and make black metal music similar to Blut Aus Nord, and use cognitive function principles in structuring the music. Or, I sometimes want to at least. ' Would first require getting an electric guitar with distortion and all that and a music recording program, but it's something to do for the future. I feel that the main outcome of doing that would be to lead me to unleashing my creativity, and learning about myself through the externalisation of thought patterns and moods.

but you remainded me of a girlfriend i had who was not supposed to be tamed, she didn't want to get married (at that moment-) and she hoped for something else, bigger. she said she wanted to sleep with some big fish (taking adventage of her beautiness (she is damn gorgeous)) and kill him when he fell asleep. She was constantly looking for a fight, she wanted 3rd world war to start, she thought everything was so damn boring, she wanted to be war journalist.

lol not exactly what I had in mind...

I mean, I still do want to get married and get a job and all that, but I feel like... there's something in life I have to achieve, maybe just the elucidation of a philosophy or creative work, maybe something else entirely.

Maybe you need to practice some Tao or something similar. Find a path. Or the path. I don't know. I can't say for you. I don't think I can aid in any way. Don't take it from me.

Once you have something that brings you a sense of joy and you wish others had the same or something similar so they could be happy too, is when you know. It's just that something. It's so the world can be a potentially safer place.

I meditate a lot. Usually only briefly to settle myself down, but regularly enough that it would be having positive impacts on my health, and it certainly is highly effective within a matter of seconds. The idea that one of the most useful things I can be doing is to simply silence my thoughts and observe is quite relieving - probably, if I meditate enough, I will have all the answers to questions like these just materialise out of the void. Often that does happen - I'll be sitting in meditation, and then suddenly realise a new perspective on a problem I had been ruminating over. Works wonders. Would definitely recommend.

 

[Niclmaki]

My advice is rather unhelpful. On looking for what is worthy to do in a life, -your life- only you can decide what that is.

Personally, I am absolutely not living up to my potential; however I find that to be a undesirable goal. I just want to be content and interested in something. My actual desires are quite simple, so contentedness is rather easy for me to achieve. I also find nearly everything interesting, and there is a lot of things in, "everything".

 

[Architect]

I'm constantly tortured by the fact that, to all reasonable measure, I fail to live up to my own potential. ...

You are making the common mistake that all intuitives make. Sensors have their own mirror version of this, but the problem for intuitives is that it's too easy to fall prey to this problem and never go anywhere in life. The world is littered with the shipwrecks of intuitives who never figure this out, and you can also see the ones who do figure it out living significant and meaningful lives.

So, what is it? I'll state it in different forms to give you an angle into the concept

• You have to learn to be a Sensor.
• You have to learn how to integrate your functional stack
• You have to discover your Transcendent Function (see Jung's original formulation)
• You have to learn to move your thinking/ideation into the real world
• You have to learn to daily do things that don't give you immediate pleasure (e.g. work)
• You have to learn from ISTJ's (Si dominant) as they are your Sensei
• You have to balance your Ti and Ne to learn how to both work and ideate
• You have to have conventionality in your life (e.g. family, job, etc)
• All of this is learning to balance the opposites within you

Intuitives that never learn this live a life of dissatisfaction usually. Sensors who don't do their version live shallow empty lives, and worse don't even know they are (but they can sense something is missing, this explains much of what is going on in politics these days).



Have an idea here? Your problem isn't that your not a good Intuitive, the problem is that you're too good of an Intuitive and a bad sensor. You need to develop your dark side, and daily remind yourself that just thinking about things is ultimately meaningless and incomplete unless you step across the chasm and bring them about in the real world, in a way others can benefit.



How you do this is up to you as it is for all of us. But rest assured that all of us on this path are reinventing ourselves every day - it's not an easy path, but the only one worth taking.

 

[QuickTwist]

Hi, Artsu.

I purposefully didn't give you advice on this because I feel I have already given you a lot of advice in our talks via PM and I don't want to overload you/tell you too much what to do. What I can say is that it looks like you have actually made quite a bit of progress and are viewing things a bit different. Obviously, there are still some of the trains of thought you have regarding "what can I do?" but overall I think just the fact that you are asking questions regarding goals is a good thing and shows progress.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

You have to learn to be a Sensor.
You have to learn how to integrate your functional stack
You have to discover your Transcendent Function (see Jung's original formulation)
You have to learn to move your thinking/ideation into the real world
You have to learn to daily do things that don't give you immediate pleasure (e.g. work)
You have to learn from ISTJ's (Si dominant) as they are your Sensei
You have to balance your Ti and Ne to learn how to both work and ideate
You have to have conventionality in your life (e.g. family, job, etc)
All of this is learning to balance the opposites within you

How different would this list be given that I'm actually an INFJ, not an INTP? (although I realise I do come across quite INTP-ish, on this site in particular). The main problem that I am lacking in sensing is still valid, actually probably even more valid because it's my inferior. Would I still be learning from ISTJ's, or would it be ESFP or something instead?

Also, I think I do have quite a bit of sensing for an INFJ, but it's not necessarily well integrated or healthy. For example, I smoke and this comes from a place of Se, but obviously isn't healthy. The healthier side of my Se is in seeing things for what they are, as opposed to looking too deep and sending myself crazay.

Learning to do things that don't give me pleasure is certainly a big one for me. I've always had a poor work ethic when it comes to schooling (my university grades are no where near what they could be if I applied myself) and I don't do things like exercise, unless you count walking. But I'm certainly determined to eventually get a job, even if I've been straggling thus far.

Hi, Artsu.

I purposefully didn't give you advice on this because I feel I have already given you a lot of advice in our talks via PM and I don't want to overload you/tell you too much what to do. What I can say is that it looks like you have actually made quite a bit of progress and are viewing things a bit different. Obviously, there are still some of the trains of thought you have regarding "what can I do?" but overall I think just the fact that you are asking questions regarding goals is a good thing and shows progress.

I can't help but feel that my motivations for this thread are themselves somewhat psychotic/manic... like, oh I have to use my incredible insight into the world to change the world. I mean if I actually were in that state, I would feel that I were already changing the world just by imagining really out there things, so I guess what I'm trying to do is integrate these feelings of potential for greatness with the more normalised picture of myself, instead of having them be totally moving in different directions so that when I get swept up in ideas, I have to put everything else on hold. So I think I have to learn to let that stuff go, and maybe I don't have to see it all as having been a waste, but more as a thing of the past, and it's time for a change.

But I do have a big goal that I'm working towards: I want to be an environmental scientist. I think using my brain to help out the environment is a noble pursuit, and it could end up being that I pour myself into my work in the future, and with some creative pursuits on the side to balance myself out, end up achieving satisfactory results for the world.

Plus I still have a lot of anger in me over how I've been treated over the past few years, and sadness about my lack of good things in my life such as love. But I certainly do have times when I get excited for the future and believe things are going nicely, and I should do more to utilise those states - and that would mean, as Architect said, integrating the Sensing side of it, so that I actually go and make real changes happen as opposed to just thinking about it, and that means changing my daily habits.

So yes, I must integrate these different directions I go in together, which I do try to do but am not quite there yet.

 

[QuickTwist]

I can't help but feel that my motivations for this thread are themselves somewhat psychotic/manic... like, oh I have to use my incredible insight into the world to change the world. I mean if I actually were in that state, I would feel that I were already changing the world just by imagining really out there things, so I guess what I'm trying to do is integrate these feelings of potential for greatness with the more normalised picture of myself, instead of having them be totally moving in different directions so that when I get swept up in ideas, I have to put everything else on hold. So I think I have to learn to let that stuff go, and maybe I don't have to see it all as having been a waste, but more as a thing of the past, and it's time for a change.

But I do have a big goal that I'm working towards: I want to be an environmental scientist. I think using my brain to help out the environment is a noble pursuit, and it could end up being that I pour myself into my work in the future, and with some creative pursuits on the side to balance myself out, end up achieving satisfactory results for the world.

Plus I still have a lot of anger in me over how I've been treated over the past few years, and sadness about my lack of good things in my life such as love. But I certainly do have times when I get excited for the future and believe things are going nicely, and I should do more to utilise those states - and that would mean, as Architect said, integrating the Sensing side of it, so that I actually go and make real changes happen as opposed to just thinking about it, and that means changing my daily habits.

So yes, I must integrate these different directions I go in together, which I do try to do but am not quite there yet.

It could just be me, but I think most of our problems can be solved through being mindful of ourselves and I am seeing that in you. It might take time, but if you can observe and describe the feelings/thoughts you are having (and possibly put them on paper) I think you might start to even out to some degree. Its about the small things that add up, not the big monumental things you accomplish imo. After all, those big things are actually made up of smaller things. Having a set few things that you do everyday and making small steps toward your long term goals once in awhile is the best way to do things, I think.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

if you can observe and describe the feelings/thoughts you are having (and possibly put them on paper)

Yeah, getting my thoughts down on paper would certainly be very beneficial, I'll do that today. It should give me some more stability.

 

[Architect]

How different would this list be given that I'm actually an INFJ, not an INTP?

Your teacher type would be different - not ISTJ - rather ISFP in your case. I've got a lot of experience with INFJ's finding their way - my wife being one. I've worked with her for decades on this.

Also, I think I do have quite a bit of sensing for an INFJ

You do, but it's not helping you.

Learning to do things that don't give me pleasure is certainly a big one for me. I've always had a poor work ethic when it comes to schooling

Not uncommon for INFJ's, not desirable either but it is what it is.

I don't do things like exercise, unless you count walking.

Likely a big problem for an INFJ. In my experience INFJ's go haywire without exercise. Back in college my wife (then girlfriend) didn't exercise, but I kicked her butt until she did. Now she's an addict (bikes, walks, runs, pilates) and turns into a witch if she goes too long without.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

You do, but it's not helping you.

Yeah I kind of just let my sensing loose for the sake of having stronger sensing, without really considering whether the particular things I was doing were helpful or not. But like, what truly is "helpful", y'know?

Hopefully it'll mean that I'll have an easier time developing the more productive kinds of sensory activities.

Yeah, getting my thoughts down on paper would certainly be very beneficial, I'll do that today. It should give me some more stability.

I did get some writing done today. By function analysis, there was an INFJ style bit in the morning, then in the late afternoon I wrote, ISFJ, then ESTJ, then INFP style. It helped me gain some perspective on stuff, in particular in regards to forced medication, which is my primary trouble at the moment.

 

[bvanevery]

This thread title brings to mind the wisdom of Conan the Barbarian. "What is best in life?" "Crush your enemies. See them driven before you. Hear the lamentations of their women."

 

[Pyropyro]

[*]You have to learn from ISTJ's (Si dominant) as they are your Sensei

Did you mean SenSi?

Anyways I agree that working with your Si is good for finding your goal in life. I find myself comparing lots of things to my past selves as opposed to others. It's kinda stressful to compare myself to others since I'll always find myself getting stressed. However, if I compare myself to what I did before then I find it easier to focus on what to do next. For example, 5 years ago I'm awkward with girls and I managed to overcome that. Now I'm focusing on improving my persuasion skills on the negotiation table.

I think one way of dealing with the wildness of Ne is to discipline oneself to do things one step at a time.

 

[PmjPmj]

For what it's worth, 'me too'. I'm always bothered by my apparent lack of direction; I have a drive to have everything set in concrete, but my life circumstances at the moment somewhat hinder (and perhaps even preclude) such a scenario - and no matter how aware of this I am, I still see myself as an under-achieving piece of shit. No amount of rationale allows me to escape completely my self hatred.

What Architect says is great advice re: (paraphrasing) being in the moment.

It can be hard to drag oneself kicking and screaming into the here and now, but recognise that the mere act of completing even an inane task (doing the dishes; ironing your shirts - whatever) gives you a hit of dopamine. You're thus more inclined to get another task done, and another, and another...

Build momentum in the here and now. Use something along the lines of a '2 minute rule'. Do things which will take no more than two minutes to complete, then go from there.

Speaking of inane tasks...

<tidies office>