Battles 5 Days A Week

There is a constant internal struggle that I engage in at work everyday. Actually, it is more like a war, with battles scheduled 5 days a week. On days off, the weariness of battle from the previous week and gearing up for the battles of next drowns the relaxation that is sorely needed. The stakes are high, and the axis of the war is in the lead. Losing is not an option, but still a possibility and would result in a lack of income, a bleak prospect of future income, and the detriment of my general well-being.

The army of hard work, concentration, and being an altogether valuable employee is not well armed. Generally they decide that there are plenty of other things to do while merely pretending to fight. It is only when presented with the weaponry of new and interesting tasks at work that this army fights with all of its might. It is at these times that great works happen. The sky opens and flows with such inspiration and concentration that the work that is done stands high above a normal day.

However, the opposition is much more powerful. Their weapons consist of menial tasks, interruptions, the draw of the massiveness that is the Internet that is at my fingertips. On days that I lose the battle, much of the time is spent browsing the net. With the absence of a driving force to invigorate the allies into action, this army readily wins the battle. At the end of the day, I lay broken, tired, and depressed by my loss. Sometimes it seems that the axis always wins.

The root cause that the battle is constantly so one-sided is mostly boredom. For years, all that it takes for me to work hard at anything that I do is to arouse my interest. (or do nothing for so long that I must get up and DO something, but that takes days) If I am learning something new, I am all in earnest. But at work, that is so rare that the day-to-day stuff becomes almost painful. Why must I reply to all of my email with answers to stupid questions or deal with the fires the must be put out. Problems just seem to constantly happen which is an early drain on any sort of initiative to complete work items throughout the rest of the day.

So how do I motivate myself, and therefore the good army, to resist the charges and assaults that come from both myself and my environment? I would hope that it is not completely up to me and that work itself is failing in someway so that I could absolve myself, but obviously this is not the case. I do not wish to find a different line of work because I generally like the area I'm in, just not the current situation. No, I think that on most days, the battle is won or lost before I ever get to work. A conscious and truthful (no tricking myself) decision to work hard the moment that the battle starts is the solution. The hardest part is that first initial skirmish in the morning. If that is won, the days battle starts heavily favoring a good outcome.

The last thing to note about this war in general is that it never ends, well, not in the near future anyway. I must build up my army every day until the opposition is weak and overpowered on even the bad days. When that happens, I will consider myself successful no matter how much money I make.

Journey To An Understanding

I came across an interesting article via Slashdot today that sparked a flurry of web browsing ending at Wikipedia (which happens alot). The article was by a writer at a Mac centered news site, but had nothing to do with Macs. Instant Messaging for Introverts was a very interesting read on a subject that I've always noticed about myself. I hate instant messaging. While the article is an interesting read, its merely the starting point of a journey to understanding.

This article made me think about a personality test that I took a while back. The test was based on a popular set of personailty types called Myers-Briggs. There are a total of 16 personality types according o their model. The result of the test came back as INTP, which is described as Introverted iNtuitive Thinking Perceiving. I took multiple tests for error-checking and they returned the same result. The tests themselves gave a short description and suitable careers, but Wikipedia gave a much more thorough description. Oddly enough, wikipedia says that INTPs only make up about 3.3% of the population, now I know why I don't identify with people.(Incidentally the career list included computer programmer, which was a nice reassurance). While the description mostly suited me, I kept browsing.

There is another closely related theory of personality types called Socionics which was much more interesting. Each Myers-Briggs type has an associated Socionics type. INTP maps to an ILI Socionics type, which stands for Intuitive Logical Introvert. The description of which was much more detailed and hit home personally. Reading the article instantly gave me a better understanding of myself and other people. It was like I was reading a biography of myself.

Here are a bunch of quotes from the article on Intuitive Logical Introverts:

• "ILIs have very well-developed imaginative abilities, and may spend a great deal of time by simply thinking. ILIs are able to create a complex and intricate inner world."
• "... prefer to observe and gather an understanding of a situation rather than actively participate."
• "Most ILIs are largely indifferent to the organization of their living areas."
• "ILIs analyze situations and make decisions in a very logical and scientific manner."
• "ILIs tend to be unconfident and often nervous about interacting with other people"
• " If left to their own devices, they often simply do nothing at all rather than interact with the outside world."
• "To many an ILI, nothing is worse than routine, menial, household tasks."
• "ILIs long for stable personal relationships with other individuals based on mutual trust and understanding, where deeper and private feelings and experiences can be easily shared. However, they lack the initiative to establish such relationships and usually expect others to make gestures in that area, admiring those who do so."
• "ILIs naturally possess a strong command of logical systems such as formal logic and mathematics."

There is a lot more to Socionics then just 16 types. I am still reading and gaining perspective. As I continue to learn more, I realize that this is an answer to my last post. Well, not an answer, its a start. I would encourage anyone who wants to find out more about themselves and their relations with other people to find and take a Myers-Briggs test, translate it to the associaed Socionics type, and read about themselves.