Are you an extrovert or an introvert?

I think the actual question is how much time does one spend being extroverted versus introverted, as everyone is some of both.  According to my last Myers-Briggs personality profile, many years ago, I’m fifty-two percent extroverted and forty-eight percent introverted.  That made perfect sense to me as sometimes I need to interact with people and other times I just want to be left alone.  I know that if I’m scheduled to present to an audience for a few hours, I need to schedule some alone time afterward.  The reverse is also true.  If I spend a morning alone in the office working heads down, by the afternoon I’ll be wandering the halls looking for someone to talk to.  As long as I maintain a balance I’m good, but too much of either will cause me to feel tired and uneasy.

My complete Myers-Briggs profile is ENTJ, having Extraverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging attributes.  The direct opposite, ISTP, is characterized as Introverted, Observant, Feeling, and Prospecting. There are fourteen other combinations and all sixteen have their unique set of strengths and weaknesses.  For ENTJs, we’re efficient, logical, efficient, and ambitious, and they make natural leaders.  Pretty spot on, in my opinion.

But the way I like to describe myself is a combination of “others-future”, meaning my first evaluation of a situation is how it will play out and affect others in the future.  While I will eventually consider how it will affect me and how it will affect myself and others in the short term, that’s not my major concern.  While something might seem good right now, for example, feeding the ducks at a neighborhood pond, the longer-term effects on the animals becoming dependent on humans to get fed override the enjoyment of the flock swimming over and enjoying some bread crumbs.