Hating It But Doing It Anyway | Fi &amp; Te

Hating It But Doing It Anyway | Fi & Te

Today we are going to talk about a primary difference in the way that Fi and Te make decisions. I of course will be sharing my perspective from the side of Te which is my second function as an INTJ. 

Recently I was in a conversation with someone who has savior Fi (this applies to anyone who has Fi as a first or second function) and realized an unusual pattern with their decision making process. Throughout our conversation everything they said revolved around a things potential to produce fun. An important note here is that the premise of our conversation was not for the sake of discovering or producing entertainment (Fi for anyone), it was specifically about financial decisions to bring in additional income. 

As they were speaking, the understanding of “deciding through Fi vs Te” truly clicked for me. I realized that I almost never make a decision based on the fact that it will result in giving me a positive emotion, or simply “be fun”.  This sent me down a rabbit hole of assessing my daily routines and their corresponding motivations. 

Heres what I came up with. 

I decide to do things because they either objectively work, or are the “right” thing to do. This is my Te.  If I am being completely honest, a lot of the things I do each day are not enjoyable or exciting…and I’m totally ok with that. These things serve a function because they are correct according to the necessary process I’ve determined to achieve the thing I want. 

This is when I started to really think about if I made decisions primarily based on how much I enjoyed them. Wow… what a change in perspective. How would I get anything actually done to completed? What choices would I even make? What repercussions would those choices have? It all felt like an instant disaster but it also got be thinking about if there could be better balance in my life with the things that work, and the things I enjoy. 

Now everyone does everything, and there are plenty of people with savior Fi who use a ton of Te when making choices. However the reason Fi is a savior to them is because the dominant amount of decisions made will reflect how they personally value something, likes and dislikes all included.

Alright, so… time for some Fi therapy. 

Here are some of the things that I Fi dislike doing, but still do because of Te reasons. And honestly, I hate having to pretend to care about them. 

Social media:

Social media has helped me in a lot of ways and I appreciate its ability to quickly and efficiently spread relatively unfiltered information. I truly believe in social media as a tool and realized early on the potential that building a personal brand could have on future endeavors. Social media works as a vehicle for many things…but I absolutely hate doing it. 

I hate trying to take photos that other people will find interesting or exciting. I hate hash tagging. I hate trying to make it seem as though any sensory thing is even half interesting. Simply, these THINGS are not interesting to me, and if they were, they would probably require more effort than I’m willing to give in their curation and capture.

However, the messages I wish to communicate now and in the future are interesting and worthy of hearing, and having an audience at any capacity makes it a lot easier for those messages to spread. Because of this, I drag my feet through currently infrequent and uninspired posts.

What I should be doing to activate my Fi more on this: Take the time to process the things that truly inspire me and share those things, instead of just using social media at a functional capacity because “it Te works”. 

Birthdays and Holidays: 

I’m already bracing for the tribe hate on this one so lets rip the band-aid off quick. I don’t care about birthdays or holidays. Mine, or anyone else’s. To me, they are just interruptions in my well orchestrated daily activities. The time that it takes to care, tend to, and participate in these things at such scale just seems like such a waste of time and energy. It’s probably the production level of these events that I find to be such a huge turn off. 

However, most people find these things important, and if these people are in my inner circle,  I will still (with minimum effort) participate. What if I need to their participation in something in the future? It wouldn’t make sense for me to tarnish their perspective of me as a human over something so simple. That just doesn’t make any Te sense for the workflow of the future and the things I may or may not need to do.

 I’m not a mean person on any scale. I want to do things that genuinely help you and better your life in some way. But I feel like these interactions are more meaningful when they occur out of need and not out of tradition. So forcing them for a special “event” just feels…forced. 

What I should be doing to activate my Fi more on this: Think about people and the things they need more outside of holidays and birthdays so when those times come, I can hopefully contribute something more meaningful and not just out of social obligation.

And no, I don’t decorate for holidays, my house stays the same all year, and I think that is perfectly fine.

Team Building:

Listen, I get it. There are particular people who need team building and actually benefit from it because the value of being a part of a community inspires and encourages them. It’s just one big feeling exercise. Let’s value each other and feel valued ourselves! Yay….no. Yet I still understand why it Te works for others, and why in some circumstances it is absolutely necessary for the sake of the TEAM.

But me personally… can’t Fi stand it. 

Once again it comes down to the whole “time is valuable” thing. Time that is being spent not working is going to result in me having to work longer, which in turn takes away from the limited time I have to do the things I actually Fi want to do! 

What I should be doing to activate my Fi more on this: Acceptance. People are different than me and some people actually need this. If I want the system to Te work better and more efficiently, this is something I just have to live with.

But also, the next trust fall, you are on your own buddy. 

Talking on the phone:

Burn it, burn it with fire. This 100% could have been completed over an email, a text, or the 3 times a year that we see each other. My main issue with talking to people on the phone is that it’s considered rude to just hang up, and therefore there is no easy escape.

I have been on more than a few calls that should have taken the maximum of 10 minutes and have somehow expanded to 45 mins or longer. But…some people need to process or receive validation verbally so though I Fi hate it, sometimes it’s just Te required because its the most efficient way  (for them) to get the thing done. 

There are about 4 people in the world that I can have a short to mid length enjoyable phone conversation with. 

What I should be doing to activate my Fi more on this: Assess the cognitive functions currently in use of the person on the other line. It will make for a more efficient phone conversation because I can better pinpoint what they are ACTUALLY asking for, and it will also become more like a puzzle… making it more fun for me.  

Stop Playing the Victim

Stop Playing the Victim

VR: The Introverts Dream

VR: The Introverts Dream