Order in the closet!

Emerging from my hole, I realize that I have not posted in a while. I usually have several projects going at any given time and once I set my mind to accomplish something I throw myself into wholeheartedly. You cannot say that I lack for enthusiasm. My sister told me that I may look good and hard before I leap, but only to plan the leap itself. The landing is yet another matter, falling under my motto, "I can only deal with one crisis at a time." I do not multitask very well, and looking and leaping and landing falls under the category of multitasking. I'm not very good with details or precision or straight lines, but I do not lack for zeal. I come up with a project and become immersed in it, planning and replanning the minutiae of how many times over because I never thought about it before hand. I throw myself into projects and quickly form tunnel vision. Nothing else matters but the project, there are no other priorities, nothing else happening, nothing that I can pay attention to. Every bit of me is involved and it takes over my world.

This is not necessarily a bad thing--enthusiasm certainly is not a fault. But many times I am so engrossed in the present that the future doesn't seem real. I deal with the here and now and when the future becomes the present, then I will deal with it. I also lack the capacity for details. I've always been baffled by why some details (like money, street names or decimal places) elude me and why other preoccupy me. I can spend hours painting a design, filling the paint in just up to the edges, staying just inside the lines. I have intricate organization methods (The Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler anyone?) but half the time there are papers and various bits and pieces strewn across my floor (and who knows where they belong). I am picky about what order my clothes hang in (all color coordinated, arranged so that each garment compliments the ones to either side of it, and no color clashes with another), but have "rubble" (as my father is so fond of calling it) on every available surface and tucked into corners behind the furniture. I am a neat freak and a slob all mixed up into one. I never understood this tendency towards both chaos and order, which endlessly frustrated my parents when I was younger, until I read my personality profile. I am an INFJ (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging), a pretty rare personality type with quirks of its own. Reading about the preoccupation the INFJ has with order made things click into place for me:



"INFJs place great importance on having things orderly and systematic in their outer world. They put a lot of energy into identifying the best system for getting things done, and constantly define and re-define the priorities in their lives. On the other hand, INFJs operate within themselves on an intuitive basis which is entirely spontaneous. They know things intuitively, without being able to pinpoint why, and without detailed knowledge of the subject at hand. ... This is something of a conflict between the inner and outer worlds, and may result in the INFJ not being as organized as other Judging types tend to be. Or we may see some signs of disarray in an otherwise orderly tendency, such as a consistently messy desk. "
(http://www.personalitypage.com/INFJ.html)

I read that and I laughed, just a disorderly desk? (And 'disorderly' sounds so... tame.) How about a swirling hurricane that descends upon every room that I enter? I have always believed it to be a character flaw. My father has always placed a great importance on doing things the right way and leaving everything in order. I always took his bent towards precision to the be "ideal" or the norm. I never understood that it was just a difference, a product of the way my mind processes information and deals with the world around me vs his methods.

I have found the whole concept of analyzing personality to be fascinating. I'm not certain where you can find a good Meyers-Briggs personality test online, but the link above has really good in depth descriptions of each personality type. Once you see it you may find yourself analyzing everyone you meet, like I do.