It’s Peoply Out There
I recently returned home from a three-day work trip, the first I’ve taken since December 2019.
It’s peoply out there.
As an introvert, I admit that the isolation part of the coronavirus pandemic was not wholly unwelcome to me. And now, the isolation is coming to an end, and we’re re-entering the world of groups, crowds, close quarters, and PEOPLE EVERYWHERE.
Some crave the company of others on a regular basis. It leaves them feeling energized and uplifted, like everything is right with the world.
I, on the other hand, often leave a gathering feeling drained, exhausted, sluggish, and wondering how many times I said or did the wrong thing. Sometimes it takes hours to recover, sometimes days.
It was a few years ago that I learned I was not alone, no pun intended, in feeling this way. I watched a TED talk by Susan Cain on the power of introverts, and immediately bought her book.
In Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking, Susan Cain made my day. She showed me that I was not a broken, weird, unnatural kind of person, just a dissimilar personality type. She also brightened my spirits by confirming that my personality type was not inferior to the party-loving extrovert, just different.
According to Cain (and my experience has been the same), “Introversion - along with its cousins sensitivity, seriousness, shyness - is now a second-class personality trait, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology. Introverts living under the Extrovert Ideal are like women in a man’s world, discounted because of a trait that goes to the core of who they are.”
Well that explains a lot.
Part of the dread of not wanting to be with the crowd is knowing that the feeling of not wanting to be with the crowd is wrong, at least in the eyes of most people, and especially in business. I admit that I have struggled throughout my career to balance my personal well-being with the business world’s requirement to wine, dine, and schmooze the clients. And throughout that career, my loathing of those experiences makes me feel like I’m letting everyone down.
It’s not just a business requirement. We learn from a young age that being quiet or shy is a defective personality trait that will keep us from succeeding in life.
I can’t tell you how many times I was urged to “come out of my shell” as a child, as if my shell was a failure that needed to be overcome. Tell that to a turtle or hermit crab!
I’m not knocking the extroverts - I’ve wished I could be one for most of my life, not because I wanted to deny my true nature, but because living in the world would have been SO much easier.
Imagine being the person that someone wants to invite to a dinner party or social gathering because you are lively, funny, talkative, exciting, and entertaining.
I’ve never been that person, and probably never will be.
That’s ok, though, because I’ve learned that just as I’ve always loved writing, it is normal for introverts to prefer to express themselves with the written word.
AND, the written word can be lively, funny, exciting, and entertaining. Maybe not like a party, but for us introverts, it’s just as satisfying.
Below is a list of some books that have made me laugh out loud, stay up all night reading, compulsively wipe my sweaty palms to ease the suspense, or think about them long after the last page has been turned:
Anything by Christopher Moore - Fool, The Serpent of Venice, Lamb: The Gospel of Christ According to Biff, Christ’s Childhood Pal, Sacre Bleu, A Dirty Job
The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova
Let’s Explore Diabetes with Owls by David Sedaris
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert Persig
Foucault’s Pendulum by Umberto Eco
Silver Linings Playbook by Matthew Quick
The Adventures of John Carson in Several Quarters of the World by Brian Doyle
I’m learning to embrace my introverted nature and not view it as a defect. There is plenty of room on this planet for the party-loving extroverts and the solitude-loving introverts. As one of my favorites, William Shakespeare, said so well, “This above all: to thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. Farewell, my blessing season this in thee!”
And as Shakespeare also observed in Hamlet, we are all fascinating and beautifully-made creatures, whatever our personality type:
“What a piece of work is a man, how noble in
reason, how infinite in faculties, in form and moving
how express and admirable; in action how like
an angel, in apprehension how like a god: the
beauty of the world, the paragon of animals”
Are you an introvert or an extrovert? What energizes you?
#introvert #closefriends #listen #quiet #deepthoughts #mellow #sensitive #writer #writing #blogger #writerlife #solitude #books #authors #people #williamshakespeare #shakespeare #hamlet #betrue #truth #shell #turtle #hermitcrab #armadillo #seaurchin
