You Cannot Live Without a Fire

Long-distance relationships are quite common among Campaigners, as they view physical distance as just another idea, no match for concepts like love. This gives them the chance to demonstrate their commitment, both by staying true despite the physical separation, and with overtures of effort to surprise their partners, crossing that distance on a whim. These are demonstrations of Campaigners’ mystery, idealism and deep emotion, and such efforts often keep the flames of a relationship burning bright.

People with the Campaigner personality type express these ideals sexually as well, exploring the physical with imagination and passion, viewing these times together as a chance to let their feelings for each other shine, sharing their love and affection. Campaigners will willingly experiment with their partners, even early in a relationship, but they can also be oddly perfectionistic, believing that these physical acts are a representation of their deeper love, and as such should not be performed carelessly. This perfectionism is also a reflection of their sensitivity, their desire to not disappoint, and Campaigners appreciate a well-placed compliment.

Not everyone can handle the excitement, occasional neediness, and emotional ups and downs that this philosophy entails, whether long-distance or long-term, mystical or physical. Campaigners constantly explore new ideas and improvements, fantasize about future possibilities – in dating, this tendency to look at potential rather than the present can be self-defeating, and their spontaneity makes it harder to stay focused on their end goal of a long-term relationship. If their partners aren’t able to reciprocate these acts of excitement and devotion, Campaigners will likely end up feeling unhappy and misunderstood.

So, You Think You Know the Real Me?

Campaigners go all-in with their relationships, and if they fall apart despite their efforts, they can end up plagued with questions about why the relationship failed and what they could have done differently – without a buoy, these thoughts can crush Campaigners’ self-esteem as they sink into depression. It’s important for Campaigner personalities, as with anyone, to remember that relationships are in all ways mutual – mutual interest, mutual growth, and mutual responsibility – and they can’t be solely accountable.

After a trial like this, Campaigners may be reluctant to open up and commit, and it can take years for a partner to navigate their bewildering depth and intensity, falsely believing that Campaigners’ enthusiasm and apparent openness means that they wear everything on their sleeves. The reality is that Campaigners’ spontaneity, the seeming inconsistency and erraticism the untrained eye sees, isn’t a product of flightiness or lack of depth, but the opposite – it is a drive to express ideas about a mystical, all-encompassing energy, in the confines of a physical world, and underlying it all is the uniting principle of love, expressed in many different ways, but unshakeable and infinite at its core.

Friendships

As friends, Campaigners are cheerful and supportive, always sharing and developing ideas, and staying open-minded, taking in others’ thoughts and feelings. This warmth and sincerity makes people with the Campaigner personality type masters of drawing people out of their shells, and as a result they tend to have a huge circle of friends.

As with other relationships, Campaigners view their friendships as opportunities to experience another angle of the universe, and tend to imbue potential friendships with that weighty and idealistic quality.

An Exciting Adventure

More outgoing types will naturally gravitate towards them, but Campaigners will also go to great lengths and be surprisingly persistent in their efforts to get to know more reserved personalities. Their ability to tune into others and speak their language with that characteristic infectious enthusiasm helps them in this endeavor, and the allure of mystery that reserved types, especially Introverted Intuitives, bring to the table will keep Campaigners intrigued for years. These personality types may never be able to reciprocate the breadth of human interest that Campaigners present, but they do appreciate Campaigners’ efforts.

But Campaigners’ interest in others can be a double-edged sword – this pure idealism comes with certain expectations, and too often Campaigners hold their friends in an unrealistic light, expecting them to keep up with the constant flow of ideas and experiences that they consider integral to life. Campaigners put their whole hearts into their friendships, and it can come as a shock for them to find that their friends aren’t the flawless Titans that they believed them to be. Whether it’s simple social fatigue or a focus on the physical and the practical instead of the mystical, people with the Campaigner personality type can find themselves disappointed by what they see as a lack of substance beneath the surface.

 

Campaigners tend to get deeply involved in others’ lives, going to great lengths and efforts to be the selfless, caring and supportive people they are, and all the while forget to take care of themselves. Both in terms of basic needs like financial stability and rest, as well as more emotional needs like mutual understanding and reciprocation, Campaigner personalities tend to give much more of themselves than most are even capable of giving back. This sort of imbalance isn’t sustainable, as (seemingly) one-sided generosity often leads to criticism and resentment on both sides.

Making Life Spectacular

Luckily, Campaigners are open-minded and sincere enough in their friendships, and connect with and understand even their acquaintances well enough, that they recognize that not everyone expresses themselves in the same ways, and that that’s okay. Their sensitivity may make it too challenging to play with more critical and argumentative personalities, such as strongly expressed Thinking (T) and Judging (J) types, but they do appreciate, even cherish, the company of most anyone who appreciates theirs, and the adventures and experiences they have together are the stuff a good life is made of.

Parenthood

If there is anything that makes Campaigners great parents, it’s the sense of wonder they have for all things new and beautiful, a sense that they will be able to share with their children every day as they learn and grow. Throughout their children’s lives, Campaigners provide a combination of almost overwhelming love and support, and an unstructured environment revolving around freedom and creativity. This in no way means that people with the Campaigner personality type will simply leave their children to their own devices without guidance – rather, Campaigner parents want to share in their children’s perspective, share in a world without bounds.

Campaigner parents are playful and warm, and love to see their children excited, playing in and experimenting with the world around them. It is likely that Campaigner parents will encourage this play and growth by suggesting activities and lessons.

 

Campaigners will embrace and encourage productive interests as they arise, sweeping away dolls and dinosaurs when interests shift to the oceans, and sweeping away the fish when tastes change again, to the stars.

While they often enough recognize the value of structure and predictability, Campaigner parents are unlikely to have the heart (or as they may see it, the lack of heart) to establish these limitations themselves. They may need to depend on their partners to provide some necessary guidelines and discipline from time to time, but Campaigner parents will always have the advantage of their open-minded and empathetic nature, making them not just parents, but friends who their children feel comfortable confiding in. They needn’t always depend on their children broaching the subject either, as Campaigners have a natural skill in spotting emotional disharmony or physical discomfort in others.

Go On, Spread Your Wings

As their children approach the teenage years, all this emotion and attention can start to cloy, and their children may seek a more private independence. This can be a challenge for people with the Campaigner personality type – they have strong emotions, and invest those emotions heavily in the things and people they care about. While they may not be big on using proven ideas, Campaigners do like to see whether or not their ideas work, and this applies to their thoughts on parenting, too. As their adolescent children withdraw, they leave an unsolved mystery that can last for years, leaving their Campaigner parents wondering if their ideas on raising their children actually work, actually result in happy, independent and creative adults.

Luckily for them, so long as they raise their children with a sense of productive independence, rather than an aimless, against-the-grain antipathy, Campaigners will find that their children have developed a strong sense of self and self-worth, going confidently out into the big, wide world at their own pace and in their own style, knowing that they have both themselves and their Campaigner parents to depend on.

Career Paths

“Can’t I fly helicopters AND be an oceanographer who writes songs and cooks?” It’s a big world out there – perhaps even a little too big. Campaigners are fascinated by new ideas, both in terms of developments in fields they are already familiar with, and when new subjects come along. The trick for people with the Campaigner personality type is to take advantage of this quality, this wonder with the magnificent breadth and detail in the world, and to use it to propel themselves further and deeper than others are willing or able to go.

If there ’ s a challenge Campaigners face when selecting a career, it isn ’ t that they lack talent or options or drive, it ’ s that there are so many things out there that are just cool.