What advice would an older INTP give a younger INTP?

So I found this beautiful article on Quora written by Sulaiman Alhasawi. In the article, he gives advice to younger INTPs on how to lead a fruitful life with their personality.

If you’re curious about what an INTP is; it is one of 16 Myers Briggs personality types, and it is an Introverted Analyst type laden with a blessing (or curse depends on how you look at it) for Knowlege, Learning and Exploration sometimes at the expense of practicality. You can check your personality type here: www.16personalities.com

In the article, he highlights 22 things an INTP should pay attention to while growing, he writes:

I’m 46 INTP. I’m the expert/master of failures and disasters. I can tell you the number of opportunities that I have wasted in my life and I guarantee you will think how I survived those or maybe think that I’m such a loser. I can write a Wikipedia about my loserpedia. I still mess up but on a smaller scale. The only difference now is I know what I do and I’m conscious about it. Unlike before when I was a complete careless and half awake. I can’t remember when I woke up. I’m still waking up, learning and discovering myself. However, I can share my experience/advice and it’s up to you if you can relate to it — everyone is different. The INTP core functions are important to study. They will shape your character/personality based on your experiences. They are like filters, so we end up us INTPs different persons. They can help you — this is the most important — to understand yourself, improve your self and forgive yourself when things get nasty. So let’s start :

1. Trust your gut or your six sense (Ti). Choose wisely.
2. Listen to your voices (Ti & Ne). Act wisely on them
3. Don’t be hard on your emotions (Fe). They are your baby. Parent them, give them advice and take care of them.
4. Never make decisions based on your emotions (Fe).
5. Your emotions (Fe) will put you in trouble many times. It’s a fact. Live with it. Be ok with it. It’s your child. You can’t punish your child. You accept it. Build survival strategies. Know how to use your (Fe).
6. Exercise your strengths (Ti & Ne) always. Analyze stuff. Criticize. Learn new materials from multiple domains. Start projects. Discover new techniques. Learn how your brain works !!!
7. Don’t you ever compare your self with others !! This is what destroyed me back when I was young. Your gifts are different. Discover it. I can’t stress this fact enough.
8. Be patient! Results don’t come fast. Appreciate your life process. You will pick up skills and wisdom as you continue to pursue your dreams. This will develop your (Si): patience and discipline.
9. Don’t fall to (Ne) tricks. It’s very active and energetic. It keeps you jumping from topic to another. Huge brainstorming. That’s a lethal weapon. Use it as you command, don’t let it command you. Be in charge. Use it positively to progress. If you use it wisely, you will progress. Other functions such as si and Fe will be happy if you take care of your Ne.
10. When you are done exploring (Ne), let the master (Ti) make the final touch. It will choose the right thing for you. Trust it.
11. In order to improve your (Ti). You need to expose your self to as many new experiences as you can. Your thinking (Ti) is internal but it keeps updating as long as you feed it. The final product is your version of thinking .its Not like Te where it’s based on the standards of others. Don’t fall into this trap. You don’t think like the others (Te). Be glad and proud of that.
12. You will notice that Te people are dominant in every field especially academia and schools. You might not fit in or be viewed as an outcast. That’s part of your life. Embrace it. Your call is different. You are not supposed to blend. You are born to judge how others think. Pretty impressive, ha? To be able to do this and it’s a second nature to INTP you need to trust your self (my first tip remember) and be willing to pay the price.
13. Learn calming techniques. Meditation and prayer (if you believe) are a must. Your head will be hot and tired at the end of the day. The dark side might pull you to unhealthy habits to calm your head.
14. Engage in physical actions: sports or anything. This will balance you. It improves Your Si and all the rest. Take care of your tools.
15. Eat healthily. Thinking people like us need to function efficiently. If you don’t, negative performance will be jumping in and you will enter the dark loop Ti-Si.
16. Your introvert Si is critical. Try to build positive experiences with Ti and Ne. It will be stored permanently. Don’t get the experiences from Fe (emotions) be aware! This is the biggest pain for INTPs.
17. Make future plans/goals and stick to them. INTPs with plans are dangerous and unstoppable. This is good because if you fall into Negative Fe and this will happen often, your plans will hold you into your path and not get lost in the dark INTP helplessness. Many INTPs fail in life because they have no future goals.
18. Try to be an expert/ master of a subject. This improves your Ti, Ne and Si . It’s okay to discover other subjects -this a default habit of INTP- but stick to one as your core. You will discover your real you. You will thank me for this. I’m older than you and I know this for a fact.
19. Socializing: a tricky one for INTP. It could be done from my experience. Your default Fe will always try to be friendly if it’s positive. Use it when it’s positive with other people. However, don’t overuse it , because people will spot you. Your Fe is immature and your weakness, do don’t try to be smart emotionally. Just stick to the basics. Laugh, smile, shallow chit chat. Only go deep with people you trust and they respect you. If you can act do it or learn it . Don’t be yourself if you want to socialize. Keep it simple.
20. You can pick any major/job/business you want. We can be in any domain. Just make sure it feeds your main core functions TI & Ne : knowledge, logic, and creativity.
21. Travel a lot whenever you can. Feed your Si experiences. Nourish your Ti and Ne.
22. Finally, take it easy on your self and others. Life is a journey and it’s bigger than us. You are not the center of the universe. Don’t take things personally- it’s hard I know but work on it. Remember! Always have fun.

I hope you find my tips useful. Excuse my English it’s my second language ;) I don’t care really (INTP stuff)

I don’t know which of these might strike you the most as an INTP, but I do know I most resonated with the advice on meditation. Since putting it work, it has yielded results in more than 80% of the time. This article is bookmarked and saved on my Quora, I hope you do the same and come back to it whenever you feel like you’re falling away.

The original Quora post can be found here.

Follow me on twitter @gb3nga , I write about Geopolitics, Economics and will start publishing my Data Science articles from next week.