Can You Be Too Perfect? | Hacker News Reader

Can You Be Too Perfect?

scientificamerican.com

18 pointspushingbits9 comments

Have many HN'ers done the Myers-Briggs personality type test? According to this test, I'm an INTJ.I tend to set very high standards for myself, many times they're impossibly high. When I fail to achieve them, I feel horribly depressed and disappointed in myself. Worse yet, I tend to have very high expectations for the people around me.

I'm that guy who joins your project and reformats your code for consistency, and who relentless refactors your code into something readable and DRY.

I've spent a great deal of time learning how to set manageable goals for myself on a near daily basis. I'm also learning how to let my expectations for others be set by others (versus me setting very high standards for them). So, I can see a bit of myself in this article. I often wish I cared a little less. It seems like an easier life.

I took that test once when I was 14, at a party, and I was INTJ as well.

But the reaction I got from other people was a little weird. I sense they may have been judging me because of the J. Which stands for Judging.

So the successive times I've taken that test, I've been overly aware of my responses, and I'll consciously skew them to produce a result that represents a more outgoing, easygoing, emotional person.

Is that wrong?

why not just clarify? the 'judging' doesn't mean you judge other people -- it means you prefer action over learning. that's the real difference between J/P -- action v learning preference.

INTP. I found that understanding that helped me out a lot. I recommend to everyone to look into their MTBI type (easy free online test at http://mypersonality.info; not as thorough as the actual MTBI test but good enough).

Coincidentally, I happened across this older HN poll for Myers-Briggs types on the /best view, yesterday. Referencing for whatever interest it may be.

It looked to me to be a rather interesting thread; I mean to go through it in more detail, as time/energy allows:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=204240

Article is less so about being too perfect, more so about wanting to be perfect when you aren't. Titles that are more marketing than description annoy me.

print http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=can-you-be-...

despite his accomplishments, Liu teeters on a mental precipice: "It feels shameful, like, hey, I’m in my early 30s, I should have had a Yahoo by now or I should at least have had a company I sold for tons of money."

Sounds familiar.

depends ..

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