Extrovert Or Introvert?

[Pursue]

I consider myself having a decent amount of self awareness when it comes to those things. But I sincerely do not know if I am an extrovert or an introvert.

Sometimes I feel like I am an introvert, and other times the opposite.

It has been a while I am asking myself this trivial question and from what I have noticed, talking to people gives me a lot of energy, most people say that I talk a lot, but on the other side, listening to people in face to face is fucking draining. I really have to force myself to listen or I directly goes in my head. 

I took the Myers test and apparently I am an ENFP, and I still think I am a fucking introvert. Hehe.

It is sincerely not that important to know which I am but I am curious: how can I know?

Is there any other people here that are asking themselves the same question?

 

[Guest Annetta]

Might be an ambivert, which is a bit of both worlds.  
Extroverted feeling types - ENFJ, ENFP - generally need time to process their feels and although they are social creatures, they tend to absorb more from others than a thinker or a sensor would - thus why you might feel drained listening to other people.

[SLICKHAWK]

@Pursue Find true self. There is no ine else. Conversation is story. 

Nothing said is true. Only self. 

You engaged other however choice is not to listen. Power of meditation is to listen. Accept others suffering to understand half or one self. Lol half being or one being.

See your self in the others show or self game not your own to understand conflict.

If we all have same outcome and end goal. Then how are we diff we different or is our self no better than one who suffers or has emotional problems.

Only accept others as your own self to grow one self. Pure concious pure soul. Balance mind/body. 

?

[Loreena]

I'm such an introvert.

[Prabhaker]

2 hours ago, Pursue said:

I am curious: how can I know?

Jung suggests that everyone has both an extroverted side and an introverted side, with one being more dominant than the other.

Extroverts are interested in the outer. They are active people, worldly – after wealth, prestige, position, power. They become politicians, they become social reformers, they become great leaders, great industrialists. They are interested in things, the outer world; they are not interested in themselves.

Then there are introverts. They are not very active people. If they have to do something they will do, otherwise they have no inclination to do. They would like to remain with closed eyes. They become poets, mystics, meditators, contemplatives. They are not interested in the world, they are interested only in themselves; they close their eyes and they introvert their energies.

An extrovert is one who is very easily lost in anything. An introvert is one who, whatsoever he does,remains alone. Somewhere he is separate, aloof, distant.

The introvert lives from within. He feels hungry then he goes to find the food. The extrovert becomes hungry when he sees the food. The introvert gets interested and looks for a woman because he feels sexually aroused. The extrovert become aroused when he sees a woman. For the extrovert cause is outside. For the introvert cause is inside.

[mostly harmless]

When you say you or someone is an introvert, a kind person, this or that, you fossilize or freeze a momentary state. 

The most critical problem this produces, is that it defines what you think a person is (in past, present and future, forever basically). If you use this thinking, you are unknowingly implementing the paradigm that persons have a static character (also that persons are distinctive entities, but one thing at a time... ). This rules out a different way of seeing a person (yourself or someone else): As an ever changing process. A great benefit of the latter perspective is that you don`t force your idea of who a person is onto someone else*, which can be regarded as a kind of violence and can provoke anger and problems in relationships, and it enables you to be open for anyone to change (also good because your assumptions about somebody can be flawed unbeknownst to you).

*When you have a conversation with 1 other person, there are really 4 persons having that conversation: 1. You. 2. The other. 3. The person who the other thinks you are. 4. The person who you think the other is. 

Person 1 is talking to person 4. Person 2 is talking to person 3. Person 1 and 2 are *not* talking with each other.

Now if you stay open minded for the other person to be different than you had thought they are (you thought they were person 4 while they are actually person 2), do you see how that may help the conversation and prevent conflict?

  "You can never step into the same river twice."

 

Edited March 21, 2017 by mostly harmless

[Shin]

11 hours ago, Pursue said:

I consider myself having a decent amount of self awareness when it comes to those things. But I sincerely do not know if I am an extrovert or an introvert.

Sometimes I feel like I am an introvert, and other times the opposite.

It has been a while I am asking myself this trivial question and from what I have noticed, talking to people gives me a lot of energy, most people say that I talk a lot, but on the other side, listening to people in face to face is fucking draining. I really have to force myself to listen or I directly goes in my head. 

I took the Myers test and apparently I am an ENFP, and I still think I am a fucking introvert. Hehe.

It is sincerely not that important to know which I am but I am curious: how can I know?

Is there any other people here that are asking themselves the same question?

 

You don't need to know, you don't need a label to put to your personality.

Just explore your personality very honestly and consciously, and see what works or not.

The problem with the Myers Briggs test and others like that, is that your mind will find all the excuses in the world to be like the description of your results, and you can't be EXACTLY what they tells you.

Even if that was the case, you'll still limit yourself to experimentations, since you'll believe deep inside that you don't need to prove something you're so sure you are, and so you'll never know for sure, by first hand experience.

Edited March 21, 2017 by Shin

[Nahm]

@Pursue you could never know because it's just what you think, at the moment.

[FindingPeace]

On 21/03/2017 at 6:50 AM, Prabhaker said:

Then there are introverts. They are not very active people. If they have to do something they will do, otherwise they have no inclination to do. They would like to remain with closed eyes. They become poets, mystics, meditators, contemplatives. They are not interested in the world, they are interested only in themselves; they close their eyes and they introvert their energies.

I don't completely agree with this. This is more of the stereotypical description of introversion.

While some are like this, many introverts are not. And there are plenty of introverted people that look outwards, participate in the world and socialise.  There are different types and degrees to introversion and extroversion. They not as black-and-white as people often try to make out.

On 21/03/2017 at 6:52 AM, mostly harmless said:

If you use this thinking, you are unknowingly implementing the paradigm that persons have a static character (also that persons are distinctive entities, but one thing at a time... ). This rules out a different way of seeing a person (yourself or someone else): As an ever changing process.

I like this. Ultimately it is all just labelling. It serves no real purpose. How about we free ourselves of the labels and just act authentically in the moment? It really doesn't matter what 'kind' of person we are. We are the kind of person we are in the present moment. And only in that moment. And it can change, from one moment to the next or gradually over time.

On 21/03/2017 at 4:09 AM, Pursue said:

It is sincerely not that important to know which I am but I am curious: how can I know?

Is there any other people here that are asking themselves the same question?

It really has no relevence to anything. You are the way you are regardless of the labels you want to apply to  yourself. The labels are of no consequence to your characteristics.

I gave up wondering which I was years ago. I'm 'supposed' to be an introvert, yet I can happily go out in the world, be around people, engage and be very active. Then, when I've had enough of that, I can happily spend hours or days in solitude enjoying my own company and my contemplations.

This is a fundamental problem with all the black-and-white dualistic labels we humans feel compelled to invent. Because once we invent them we spend our lives trying to 'fit' in to one or the other. Causing ourselve's undue concern and anxiety. Judging ourselves against eveyone else's labels. "Am I this or that?". Maybe I'm neither or both. Of maybe it just doesn't matter. Reality is not so black and white. It is more nuanced, but  unfortunately our labelling system isn't.

 

[mostly harmless]

The short answer is: A personality type is about the personality of your ego. That's not who you are.

It is useful if you need to hire people and have either no awareness of anything beyond the ego or expect the people you hire to stay in ego-land for the foreseeable future or forever.

For yourself, it enforces the belief in your ego being real. I wouldn't recommend it.

[alyra]

extroversion and introversion are just labels to denote patterns. 

 

humans love to use labels in order to lock them into these patterns! so funny, yet so sad

[LiakosN]

@Loreena why so?