Have You Changed Over the Years?

[bluebell]

You know, lifelong defense mechanisms (or however you want to term it) can take quite a long time to work through and exterminate.

Totally agree. It's the main reason why I took a hatchet job to my entire belief system (I'm not talking religious beliefs but more my beliefs about myself and the world around me). The only thing I didn't tear down was my Ti mental model of the world and universe around me. It's one of the reasons why it was so useful for me to discover MBTI and INTPc a couple of years ago. I thought I'd torn everything down and wasn't sure if there would be anything left, but then realised there was part of me that was *me* that I could leave at the core.

 

[maerzhase]

I don't think type changes by much. I am just as dreamy and aloof as I was during my childhood years. Still I found a ways to cope with it so I am a bit more practical these days but not much. I am still driven to read and learn new things. However during puberty I had quite a tought time and looking back there was a lot of my shadow function Se in me. I remember thinking to myself how useless and boring life is. I just focused an very narrow material things like food and dress and felt that I did not get any inspiration as I used to in the years before. Luckily this changed and I am back to my old way of viewing life.

 

[Synapse]

You know, lifelong defense mechanisms (or however you want to term it) can take quite a long time to work through and exterminate.

Yes without a doubt, takes far too long to change the defenses that are there to initially help and cope but then hinder to move forward personally.

 

[Domino]

At my core, I'm unchanged, just better able to harness the rumbling rattle trap beneath.

I was always a fiery kid, just very quiet and withdrawn at times. It was anxiety, and I didn't always trust people (for good reasons). As I've grown older, as far as assertiveness, I'm night and day different. But I'm still me, a chip off the INFJ Dad block.

I've always been "myself" if that's what you mean.

 

[Totenkindly]

This is an aspect in which I have changed as well. During adolescence, I was deeply influenced by religious ideals. I felt tremendous external pressure especially when I was at a Christian boarding school at ages 16-18. I felt intense pressure to "be a good example". I was taught alot about the end of the world and how if we didn't have a perfect character by the time Jesus returned, then we wouldn't be able to go and some other things like that which exacerbated some of the emotional imbalances I had anyway. My world view had been constructed and imposed on me and it caused some cognitive dissonance on a variety of levels.

Yes, we both had a similar upbringing.

Although it's a weird dichotomy for me... Externally I guess I was complying to avoid getting criticism or disrupting my life, internally on some levels I did accept the worldview as "mine." I do believe in health and growth and perfecting oneself (I have always driven myself hard), and I guess the religious environment only exacerbated that. Where I am now is far different, now that I've learned to accept my humanness and not see it as an "evil" thing. Maybe my sense of higher morality changed more into how I interrelate with people in the positive sense, rather than how few sins people can visibly credit to my account.

There was a core aspect of myself that I discovered independently of the external pressures. This I found when I would go alone in nature and let go. I had a little walk I would take from the school so that I was hidden behind a group of trees and could see nothing except for some fields of corn, soybeans, and the clear blue sky. Every perception would take in a richly aesthetic experience. The boundary between myself an this tremendous beauty would disappear. It healed me every time.

I think nature is one thing that saved me.
Art was the other -- music, writing, drawing, whatever.

In my most miserable times I would just disappear into the woods and fields when I could, all by myself, and all the pressure would vanish. I could just be me.

And shutting myself in a black room and playing the piano in the dark, or listening to evocative music... again, I no longer had to "be" anything except me, and I could just feel and live.

All the pressure was gone.
My soul could sing.

Of course, those things haven't changed. It's just that I feel more "me" without having to specifically do them. But I still love to do them.

 

[Moiety]

I was never naive but I've learned to be a bit more careful trusting people. Apart from that I'm the same.

 

[kendoiwan]

[youtube=837MASaVOAA]Nope[/youtube]

 

[King sns]

The question of whether or not people change is an interesting one because on one level we are in a constant flux of change based on our reactions to our environments, but is there something at the core that remains constant?

I've changed quite in bit in a number of ways as far as I can tell. It seems that way from the inside looking out. Significant events in life and changes in my understanding of the world in general is what has changed me the most.

In what ways has life changed you over the years?

Not really. I have some very different personas based on situations, but my basic personality has always been the same, looking back. I have normal changes from getting older and maturing. It would be insulting if someone from highschool or something said, "you never changed." I mean, that would imply that I don't adapt very well . Gotta change some of those ideas and perceptions to survive . But I always stay the same as far as basic personality and makeup.

 

[NewEra]

Good topic, I made a topic about this a while ago too. Anyway, my take on it is this -

I have definitely changed over the years, and I go through phases. At some points, I feel more extroverted and sometimes, more introverted. I have grown more T as I've become older. In my case, my MBTI type has definitely changed/shifted over time. I don't know how common this is among others, and from the replies, it seems like many people don't change, but I know I have and did.

 

[garbage]

Don't feel bad, that's just how extroverts have to become to go through college.

Makes sense.. everyone's gotta develop some T and J to make it through college, maybe also some I. I studied engineering during my undergrad and masters, which just hammered those aspects into my brain even more. I'm studying computer science now as a roundabout way into psychology through AI, human behavior modeling, and human factors.

I'm slowly finding that what makes me happy is different than what I'd actually been doing for the past seven years in school, that I love a flexible environment and the chance to make a difference in the lives of other people. Since I'm beginning to not concentrate on work and school, I find that I'm becoming much less "TJ." I'm just wondering how much of that transition is revealing my natural preference, how much is just mental maturation, and how much I've just learned to do out of necessity.

Luckily, modeling and simulation is a very versatile career, so I'm able to cater to that aspect of my personality through my work.

 

[Frosty]

Ive become probably more mature, tolerant, understanding, and less reactive (though...)

I hope to continue to just... improve as a person. Am very open to it- think everyone has so much potential for so much good so why deny my own? If I keep working at things Ill become a better and better person... hopefully.

That is my real mission I suppose, self actualization

 

[Obfuscate]

i have, but the scale is miniscule if you exclude childhood... by the time i hit fourteen, the shape of who i am was roughly, but definitively formed... all that has followed has been the removal of the ill defined... i think the process could be compared to sculpting stone... what is not me is chipped away, and what remains is a clearer image everyday...

 

[Lark]

I like to party.

And by party I mean stay home, alone, drink coffee and read books.

Or mess around online.

 

[Cellmold]

"What we attend to, changes the attended."

That's pretty much been the byword for the last 15-20 years of my life. All I can say, without a level of detail that I'm a bit too tired to go into, is that yes, I've changed massively and I'm hoping it was for the best.

 

[Polaris]

In a lot of ways, I've done a 180 degree turn. I used to be far, far more outgoing, and I also used to be quite rebellious, whereas I'm now very well-behaved. I was also a great deal more emotional when I was younger; now I'm placid most of the time. I actually don't resemble my younger self that much at all. That's one reason I'm adamant that type can change.

 

[Firebird 8118]

Hmm... certainly a bit more experienced and less naive, but overall I'm still me. I think.

 

[Lark]

Its just striking me how incredibly different I am, when I do a big clear out of books and I see ones that I bought at a particular time and place and for particular reasons and now I'm just happy to part with them and wont miss them. That's a big thing. Seeing my interests change, priorities change, preoccupations etc.

There's also something has changed about my ability to let myself get absorbed in a good book too, that has changed, also I'm more interested in fiction than non-fiction these days too. Which isnt a great thing because I do have a lot of non-fiction which I was going to work through.

 

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[Mole]

Two things change us: bearing and raising children, and going into battle.

In most cases we leave our old self behind and we can't go back, What happened to me, we ask.

Of course fatuous and disgusting narcissists constantly ask themselves how are they changing, all without bearing and raising children or going into battle.

 

[Forever]

While through an inner journey, yes I have grown tremendously. Outer journey, I’m going forward. It’s wanting to get your feet wet and setting priorities