Do you know, are you an introvert or extrovert? Do you get energy from being alone, or being with other people? I am on the introvert side, definitely. I need my quiet time and my space. I thrive with a good amount of solitude, and time to think. I will always choose small group interaction versus a big party. Add to that a serious case of shyness when I was younger, and I always felt I didn’t fit. I felt that there was something wrong with me, because I didn’t quite meet up to the social expectations around me. I remember as a teenager, being parts of a group activity or mixer, and discovering later no one remembered I was there. I felt invisible. But I knew, deep down, there was more to me, if someone would just take the time to look.
This feeling extended on into college and the working world. Thankfully, I chose to go to a private university with small classes in general and a tiny, fledgling engineering program. I got to know my fellow engineering majors well, because there were so few of us and we spent so much time together. One of my friends from college described me in this way: “You’re like a red hot chili pepper in a cool green salad,” he said, “You think you know what you are going to get and then OUCH! You take a bite.” I loved that description, because it was as if someone had finally seen me. The real me, hidden inside the quiet, calm exterior.
But in each new situation I had to start again. I don’t think I said a word in a meeting my first year in the working world. Not one word. It’s amazing they kept me there! Slowly, slowly I learned to fit into this extroverted world I was living in. I gained experience, I gained confidence, and I gained a thicker skin. I learned to balance my alone time with social time, but I always felt a tension because I had the need for quiet time to think and recuperate. As if I was somehow less, for the need of it. I kept wishing that I could be the life of the party.
All of this comes up because I watched this TEDtalk from Susan Cain last week on the Power of Introverts:
I was in tears by the end of it. It felt as if she had finally validated who I was. That I was ok. That the quiet teenager and young adult I had been, the introvert I still am, is just a different kind of normal. That there is a benefit in being an introvert, not just a downside. There is a benefit to the time I need to think and explore. I can see that in my art, and here too, in my writing. I can see the time I spend in my head, the time I spend alone creating… that time helps my ideas come together into something bigger than myself. Something I can share with others.
Susan Cain gave this message to introverts in her talk, “The world needs you and it needs the things you carry.” I felt as if she were talking directly to me. Maybe the world doesn’t always need the life of the party. Maybe the world sometimes needs what comes out of the quiet power of deep thought. Maybe the world needs what I have to offer. As me, the introvert. I only needed to find a way to comfortably allow these ideas to come out. Which I have, through this blog. It allows me, bit by bit, day by day, to reveal the red hot chili pepper that resides within the cool green salad, which I’d never feel comfortable doing all at once with a big “ta-da!” There is a reason you don’t see me in video here or in my classes. It’s not just because I feel uncomfortable in front of the camera, although there is a little bit of that, it’s mostly because I love the time and space of writing and how it helps my ideas to form. It’s my medium, as much as photography. Both allow me to think and to process before I share.
Regardless of whether you are an introvert or an extrovert, I encourage you to watch the video. And think about how things play out in your life, your environment, your culture. In this age of bold personality, see if you can help encourage someone who doesn’t fit that mold to explore their quiet power. That someone may even be you.
Yay for crunch salads full of spice! You’ve got heat AND texture…
Caryn
Thanks for pointing me to the video Caryn! It really had an impact on me, as you read.
Is there a downside to being an introvert? I no longer think so.
Thanks for this post.
Yay! 🙂
I listened/watched this months ago, but it was time for a refresher. Susan Cain’s statement, “Solitude matters.” jumped out at me this time. It helped me breath deeply and reminded me that I’m in a good place for a good reason. Even for introverts there are seasons to be still, to enjoy the solitude, to prepare for the next season.
Thank you for the reminder…and for the boldness to continue to share.
Thank you for highlighting that statement: “Solitude matters.” It does. I’m glad watching the video again helped you reconnect.
I read her book last summer. It was wonderful. It helped me to understand me, and gave me words to courage my daughter who is also an introvert.
I know I have found a wonderful teacher in you, I connect with you on many levels, including the passion to write and photograph.
Thanks Sarah. I’m so glad we’ve connected here and in Find Your Eye!
That’s great Kat, thanks for sharing. Really interesting.
So, are you an introvert or an extrovert Leanne?
Kat, I tend towards introversion.
Yes! I’m an introvert too and have finally come around to embracing it. I enjoy people, especially one on one. Like you, blogging has helped me find ways to express myself. I really enjoyed the video — thanks!
I’m glad to hear this! As I was thinking it is great that all of us introverts found each other on the internet, I wonder if it isn’t something that is not so random after all. My classes, for example, are ones that ask you to think and come up with your own ideas. That style of learning may appeal more to those of us trending toward introversion. I don’t know.
Oh, your words and Susan’s talk resonated powerfully with me. I am a definite introvert, happy to be by myself, craving quiet and solitude. Social interaction is difficult for me. But that’s where the power of the Internet has changed my life – sharing in this way allows me to engage with others in a way that is comfortable for me.
I like how you put that Brenda, “Sharing ina way that is comfortable for me.” I feel the same!
Thank you. It matters that we are who we are.
Such a beautifully simple statement Carolyn, but so very true. It does matter!
Thanks for this, Kat. I’m an introvert, too. I used to think that my desire to work on my own was something I needed to change. It wasn’t until I noticed the same characteristic in my older son, and recognized that his teachers were giving him the message that he needed to change that about himself, that I started to rethink that. My son, like me, does better when working on his own. He comes up with innovative ideas that no one else does – creative ideas that really work. So now I believe that being an introvert is actually a quality to celebrate. It only took me 40 years to understand that…. =)
BTW, I would never have guessed that you feel uncomfortable in front of the camera. The photos you posted of yourself a few days were fabulous.
Me too, Annie. I think it’s especially important for us to recognize this in our kids, as you have Annie, and make sure they don’t get the message that they aren’t good enough the way they are. I think that’s why I such a strong reaction to her message, it opened up those years of feeling “not good enough” and not fitting in. I had boxed them up and put them on a shelf, thinking they were gone.
And oh yes, tons of discomfort in front of the camera… 🙂
Great Video. I am an INTROVERT and no doubt about it. That’s one reason, I believe, that I love spending time alone with my camera while seeking the deeper meaning in the environment that surrounds me. My life partner is an extrovert but we have built a relationship that allows each of us to thrive in our own comfort zone. While I do enjoy occasional dinner with another couple or two or three friends, crowds stretch my stress level almost to the breaking point.
Vi
Kat, I saw this a while back and resonated with it on so many levels as I do with your post. I took a personality test once that said I was 50/50 intro and extro and while I can see some of that, I have always thought of myself much more to the intro side.
I always felt inferior to the extra social girls growing up…. I wish they could get this message to kids and teenagers that it’s all OK!
I love my solitude and have learned to appreciate that part of myself even though I didn’t get it till I was in my 50’s…. wisdom with age, I guess. Great post!
Thanks Patty! So many of us have this shared experience. I think the more we talk about it, especially with the kids in our life, the better we can make things for everyone.
I just finished reading Susan Cain’s book, Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking. I’m an almost-off-the-chart introvert and I crave quiet. Sometimes I wish I could ask people to just. be. quiet. PLEASE! That’s not to say I don’t like people or want and need a social life, but I do need solitude and quiet, and lots of it. I could happily be a hermit, and have to fight that tendency in myself. I sometimes envy more extroverted people their social ease, but I’ve always known and accepted my own nature and have never felt that being introverted made me inferior. As I’m fond of saying, introversion is not a pathological condition!
One of the things I love about your classes, Kat, is not just their introspective nature, but that they force me to think and to share my thoughts in words as well as images. And I treasure the community of kindred spirits that I’ve found through those classes and beyond, here on the internet.