Why can I never be happy with what I have and with who I am? Why do I keep feeling like I’m missing out? Today we’re talking about NF Melancholy or non-complacency. The NF personality types have one thing in common. They are never completely happy with themselves or with their life. There’s always questions running through these types.
This melancholy drive, when healthy, can pressure the NF into being more authentic, and into finding more depth and fulfilment in their actions and their lifestyle. It can push you to the edge to try new things, have deeper conversations, and more fulfilling friendships. When unhealthy, however, it can alienate you from your friends and family members, causing you to feel lost or without roots or a home.
When the NF Dreamer Awakens
To be an NF means to be someone who has questions and ideas about who they are and what they should be and where they should go in life. Dreams, impressions, feelings that push you to challenge yourself and to aspire to more.
These questions are nothing bad in themselves, in fact, they are often something you ask enthusiastically, you enjoy the search, the going deeper, the theories, and you appreciate having the dreams you do. They are a part of your happiness-makeup and what makes you feel ultimately happy about your life and what you are doing.
Complacency is something negative for you, it is giving up. To settle in or to let go of your dreams and just accept life for what it is is a nice thought but not something you would be truly happy with. The times when you have given up in your life have been the most dull and frustrating times in your life. It’s a nice thought, but nothing that works in reality. (Ha!)
In fact, there will be moments when you break free of routine and start aiming higher, and those times will feel like an awakening. They’ll be the most thrilling, eye-opening times of your life. Those moments are true NF moments.
The NF Problem
Often, your dreams and questions put you at odds with your work, career and ambitions. Often, your ideas are impractical, impossible, and beyond your level of skill or ability. You are and you feel weaker than most people out there, less thick skinned, more sensitive. Your ideal career may force you to push yourself to work harder than you ever worked before.
Your ideal relationship or soulmate may force you to move halfway across the world. Your ideal lifestyle may force you to have to work hard or make more money and is simply not affordable. The NF problem is that dreams are hard work, and settling in is far more easy. NFs often lack the resilience and self-discipline to make their own dreams come through. They may talk big and dream vividly but they often fall flat on execution. Most people will never really believe in you or that you can make it.
There may be times when you tell yourself the dream itself will be big enough. You don’t need to make it happen and it’s enough to immerse yourself in your own fantasy. Books and stories can soothe away the mundane in your life and be an escape from they grey walls of a forty hour work-week. Other times, you’ll just want to escape. The melancholy of the NF personality type is real and comes from the NFs inability to realise their dreams and to make peace with having ideas that will never happen. As an INFJ, I can feel completely frustrated with myself for being unable to make my own dreams happen, and never feeling satisfied with my own work. I will never be satisfied, not until I can take the time to truly master the skills necessary to execute my ideas, and not before I am able to truly reach and connect with people and make a real difference in the world.
What is a dreamer?
Dreamers see what the world could be, using their imagination. They see a world that can grow and mature and fall into place. iNtuitive and Feeling, NFs embody the spirit of seekers of meaning, sages of the soul, people longing for magic, and idealistic dreamers. Their focus is on their feeling of connection to the world and community. They tend to emphasise the need for freedom and privacy to form one’s own identity and nurture one’s own inner world. They are the idealist personality type personified. INFP, ENFP, ENFJ, or INFJ.
The Four Idealists
INFJ: At their best, holds sage like wisdom and pursues inner harmony. Giving and visionary nature. 
