No Passion?

[Rakshasa]

I'm going into my senior year of High School next year, and yet I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. I'm surrounded by people who know what they want to do, and are prepared to go through with it. (This is to be expected as I go to an academy school, where I study law.) I want to be able to travel. I want to go to school for a grand assortment of topics. I want to be able to sate my curiosity on a grand number of subjects. I want be free, and I want the money to sustain myself. There's so much I've not seen, and just as much (if not more) that I haven't studied.

Is this a common problem for INTPs? What I've read seems to peg the type as indecisive. If that's accurate, do any of you have any wisdom they could share with me?

 

[Rakshasa]

Also if this thread already exists elsewhere on the forum link me and I'm sorry I wasted space.

 

[ProxyAmenRa]

I recommend not doing a university degree that will bear no returns and not increase your ability to be employed. For example, studying a degree in philosophy will not get you a job that pays well or it will take 13 years of education to get a low paying job in that field and you will never be able to pay of the student loans. Many people have fallen into this trap and it has destroyed their lives. The same goes for law, sociology, economics, psychology, the arts, etc.

The value of getting a trade is on the increase. Especially in the more technical trades.

A degree in engineering is valuable. Once again, especially in the more technical subsets.

Applied mathematicians and statisticians are highly sort after.

 

[EditorOne]

This one isn't exactly somewhere else, but it is a common theme. Scout around a bit. Your situation is very common among INTPs still in school. In a nutshell, much of the world puts a premium on making decisions early and then focusing on implementing the decision. INTPS seem doomed to realize all the "on the other hand" facets of any decision. Couple that with a tendency to get bored with any activity or interest once we achieve competency in it, and there you are. There we are. All of us, to some extent or another. A few, including Architect, have managed to find careers that have enough challenge and facets to avoid the boredom part. Most of us, not so much. And it can become extreme. When I was a young man, but old enough to drive, I had a part-time job delivering newspapers, starting at 4 a.m. After eight months I got so repelled by the brainless repetition of the job that it got physical: I'd pull up to the dropoff spot to get my bundles of newspapers, and the smell of the fresh ink made me gag. Literally, not figuratively. I'd puke.

 

[Architect]

A few, including Architect, have managed to find careers that have enough challenge and facets to avoid the boredom part. Most of us, not so much. And it can become extreme.

Thanks for the mention. I actually am bored with my present workplace, for the most part, but it pays so well and is so easy ('golden handcuffs') that I stay. It allows me to pursue other interests (in my field and outside) Really I'm building a 'post day job' business, working for myself with a nest egg buffer.

I've said elsewhere that I think INTP's (myself included when younger) obsess too much about the big What (What am I Doing?), not realizing that it's really the details that matter in how much they like their work and life. For example, I work in a technical field, I think most INTP's would, if they had the background, enjoy. But jobs range from good to bad, and how good a job is depends on the person too. For me at this point in my career, I get a ton of autonomy, working from home most of the time, and am self directed - this is good. When I was younger, I was a lead engineer and traveled the world on the company dime - good for that time. I didn't have the maturity back then to handle the job I have now, and now I have no interest in bossing a team and traveling the world.

So find something your interested in (technical if you have any background for sure) and the key to passion, interest and lack of boredom is finding the right circumstances. My son is an INTP, for sure I'll be teaching him this (though he is following right in dads footsteps and I'll probably work for him one day)

Edit: I should say, that part of the reason why I love my field (computers) so much and stay with it, is that I did try my hand at everything that interested me. In order of seriousness, software, music, physics, photography, writing, art, audio engineering, and a load of other ones. The first three I achieved professional level, but my career has been in software, I do music now for personal enjoyment (precious little time for it), and do photography quite seriously.

So what I'm saying is that it ultimately did help me to find my real passion, because I finally noticed that while trying all these things, I've always been a computer nut.

 

[snafupants]

I'm going into my senior year of High School next year, and yet I still have no idea what I want to do with my life. I'm surrounded by people who know what they want to do, and are prepared to go through with it. (This is to be expected as I go to an academy school, where I study law.) I want to be able to travel. I want to go to school for a grand assortment of topics. I want to be able to sate my curiosity on a grand number of subjects. I want be free, and I want the money to sustain myself. There's so much I've not seen, and just as much (if not more) that I haven't studied.

Is this a common problem for INTPs? What I've read seems to peg the type as indecisive. If that's accurate, do any of you have any wisdom they could share with me?

Those people are probably wholesale smarmy wonk automatons on the verge of severe existential problems. Any seventeen year old with a definite idea of his future is an ignoramus/simpleton with a fancy suit, an enfeebled bureaucratized monkey with a pen. Anyway, that's been my experience. Well, I suppose I'm curiously deficient in reverence for cultural institutions. They work for some people. Disregard everything I just said if you like.

 

[Fghw]

I could imagine a degree in thinking.

 

[Coolydudey]

Those people are probably wholesale smarmy wonk automatons on the verge of severe existential problems. Any seventeen year old with a definite idea of his future is an ignoramus/simpleton with a fancy suit, an enfeebled bureaucratized monkey with a pen. Anyway, that's been my experience. Well, I suppose I'm curiously deficient in reverence for cultural institutions. They work for some people. Disregard everything I just said if you like.

I always knew what I wanted to do. The subject always drew me and interested me unlike all others. Plus I have a huge talent at it. If you're wandering, that's maths.