How Can an INTP Be Happy? — A Letter to My 20-Year-Old INTP Self.

Your life won’t be easy, but you can begin to make it better.

There was that one time in elementary school when you realized that you were probably different.

You felt awkward. You didn’t know how to relate to people.

So, you learned to pretend until you couldn’t pretend anymore.

Later on, you stumbled onto a personality test called the MBTI. You think it’s bullsh*t, but you do it anyway.

You realized that you were an INTP, and everything diagnosed about you fits, 100%.

You know what’s wrong now.

Now, you’re an INTP looking for a way out. You just want to be happy, or at least, not hate your life so much.

I won’t go into the details of the MBTI. I’m not here to debate the intricacies of the framework, or if it really works. Let’s assume that the MBTI and its associated categories are, for all practical purposes, a workable model of human personality.

Introverted. Intuitive. Thinking. Perceiving.

You hate being an INTP.

You would rewire your neurons if you could. But you can’t. So, you make do with the deck you’ve been dealt.

This is not a guide.

All this is my own experience and the paths I’ve walked. I hope that this contributes a data point for your further consideration.

If you’re a true INTP — you can never have too much information.

#1. You think you’re smart, but you’re not. Get over it.

Let’s face it. You’re often lost in your head. You spend too much time reading irrelevant and pointless details about Latin grammar, ancient Earth mysteries, whether aliens exist, string theory, and figuring out the history of Batman and the relationship between Superman and anti-semitism.

You spend too many hours on Wikipedia.

You love information and you love to soak it up.

And you think you’re smart.

But you know what? You’re not that smart, especially when it comes to real-world smarts, so please get over it. No one cares about your self-perceived intelligence. Sorry to bruise your ego, but the world does not care about how intellectual you think you are.

In the world outside of your self-created mind world, you can be sure that every idea that you’ve thought of will never be unique. You can have a lot of ideas, but ideas need to get out of your head, into the world, and be transformed into action.

Think less and try to take action more frequently.

It’s hard at first, but it will pay off.

I promise.

#2. People don’t want to hear you theorize or philosophize. Refrain from rattling off.

And yes. I get it.

You love devouring books on astrophysics. You are a self-confessed geek.

You even know parts of the Communist Manifesto by heart (nah, just kidding).

You have a theory to explain every phenomenon in the world.

But — and this connects back to point number 1: people don’t care about how smart you think you are. They don’t want to hear you theorize about how the world works.

No, the world doesn’t give a sh*t about your “great ideas.”

And the truth of the world is this: the world is action oriented. The world is an artifact in the making; and so, it necessarily privileges action — the outward application of force; an effort to reduce entropy in the world. All that brainwork and thinking is not going to have any impact if you don’t take action.

But you’re not made for action — your action will happen in your head. Make that your advantage. Your brain works by thinking, not doing. So, you need to find a way to make use of that.

There’s a way out for you.

Find a way to redirect your creative energy. Don’t just mindless consume videos on Netflix. Create something.

Writing is one of the best media for you. Writing will help you organize complex thoughts. It will help you think better. And most of it, it will give you a place to vent off excess brain energy.

Don’t wait. Start to write as soon as you can. Yesterday was better than today, but today beats tomorrow.

And tomorrow beats never starting.

#3. People skills won’t be your key strength, so please avoid jobs that require intensive cajoling.

I know — you secretly don’t want to deal with people.

Even though you don’t actually hate people. Maybe you even like people. You want to make the world a better place. It sounds cheesy, but deep down, you do care about others.

You just don’t show it in the same way.

But no — you are not a natural “people person.” You can try to compensate for that weakness. And if you deal with enough people, you might even learn a few tricks to do with people.

Memorize a few scripts for different scenarios. That will help you manage people to an extent.

• How to manage a negotiation
• How to give constructive feedback
• How to set expectations

And so on. You can develop empathy. But you’ll never be a “native” of the world of empathy.

And that’s ok. As I approach 40 years old, I’ve accepted that I’ll never be as smooth as people as my friend, who is a natural salesman. And I’m cool with that. And you should be too.

Still, it’s not possible to completely avoid working with people in most modern jobs. Modern jobs are complex and often project-based, and complexity presupposes working as part of a team.

Just avoid jobs that require dealing with people as your main job. You’re not going to cut it out in retail. Customer service? probably not a good idea. Working with people 24/7 will quickly drain you.

And if you must do sales, make sure you can find a way to balance that in your job with moments where you can relax, turn down the speed, and generally just be “inside your head.”

That’s your safe place and the place where you recharge.

#4. You’re not made for the corporate world. Create an escape plan.

Ultimately, the corporate world is hell for the true INTP. As an INTP, you are introverted. You get tired after having to deal with too many people. Meetings drain you.

Accept it.

For you, it will feel like you are struggling to be yourself in the corporate world.

As an intuitive — details bore the hell out of you. You’d rather be painting with huge brushstrokes, not filling in Excel forms and being asked to redo it because you filled in a wrong number or if you made a typo while doing a copy-paste operation. But modern work is paperwork, and paperwork is boring work.

You’re also a thinker — now this can go both ways. Many thinkers also thrive in the corporate world — but since you’re an INTP, your thinking is internally oriented, not externally oriented.

You’re more interested in making your worldview internally consistent. You don’t care as much about the external world. Unfortunately, your employers are not going to pay you for that.

And finally, as a perceiver, you hate plans. If you could, you would wing it every single day. Plans are restrictive. And also, boring. And they don’t give you freedom — which is the thing you cherish the most. Rules, schedules, forms? These things literally define bureaucratic existence. They are almost incompatible with being an INTP.

So, my dear 20-year-old self: You are not made for the corporate world. The idea of being exploited by your capitalist overlords offends your intelligence and sensibilities.

So, I encourage you to use all that brainpower of yours to imagine an escape plan. An alternative way of being.

There is always more than one way to live.

#5. You are good at seeing things differently from the rest of the world. Don’t be conventional. Do your own thing.

Ultimately, INTPs have a superpower — that of insight. Your status as a stranger and observer of people and other worlds means that you will never really fit in.

And yet, your being “in-between worlds” gives you a gift. Although you never belong anywhere, you also stand apart from most people. You can see deeper than most. You can see through all of the bullsh*t. But you don’t need to call it out.

You don’t need to play the same game.

You can create your own.

Learn that you can create your own game by understanding the difference that separates creators from wage workers.

Use your imagination to learn that money is just a form of communication — and some forms of communication can literally create more money.

Learn as much as you can about social trends and emerging technologies.

Don’t dismiss anything, even if they are something as crazy as mining coins from nothing. Or NFTs.

Exploit your superpower of insight.

Fifteen years later, you might just thank me for it.

#6. But don’t let points #1–5 stop you from stretching your comfort zone. You can grow.

Perhaps the growth journey for each individual is to find psychological wholeness.

An INTP will never become a native speaker of the language of empathy.

An INTP, short of having a severe head injury, will likely hate plans and prefer to wing it and improvise.

But this doesn’t mean you cannot grow beyond your incapabilities. Don’t use your personality type as a straitjacket to tell yourself what you can or cannot do.

Ultimately, an INTP stands for freedom.

Do things that maximize your freedom, and perhaps you’ll have a chance of being happy.

© Alvin T. 2022

And if you’ve made it this far, here’s another piece.

The author is an editor of Japonica, a Japan-focused publication, but also writes on a wide variety of topics. His key topics of interest are society, culture, modern work, creator economy, and cryptocurrency, with the occasional fictional story, creative piece, or personal essay. Discover his most-read stories here.