Extrovert or Introvert: Speaking up, up and away!
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Extrovert or Introvert?
In a world of booming voices, how can you be heard?? In a world of unmerciful competition, if you don't express yourself, are your ideas still valid, veritable, worth it? In a world of ringing bells, are you supposed to raise your voice for others to hear you or let your voice fade into the bedlam of noises that we hear everyday, the whirring of machines, the chirping of birds?
Everything has a quality of its own, yet sometimes we can't tell, what is special about us, what makes us unique, different. I grew up in a world of confusion, everything about my personality was a big question mark, you'd think being a straight A student (totally bragging here ✌🏻🙄) makes you happy. I'm sorry to break it to you, it doesn't. I felt like a lost cause without a purpose, a candle burning to just burn, no reason, not to light someone's path, not to serve as a guide for some wandering insect, like a moth drawn towards the flame that I knew would end up burning me, I let myself fall, falling effortless, letting gravity take me, let myself hit rockbottom and when I was at my worst in life, I thought there was no 'ever after' for me, that my fairytale would never be completed, I was scared shitless, but recently, when I was watching a drama (So I married the Anti-fan, it is 'daebak', I recommend you watch it), someone in the drama said, "You have to hit rock bottom first to bounce back up high." Now that I've come out of what you'd call my 'slump', I can feel what they said, from the bottom of my heart, that even in falling, I found something valuable, holding my head under water, until it felt like I couldn't breathe anymore, I found the answer to my question.
I always wondered, what does it mean to be an 'extrovert' or 'introvert', it took almost facing death, but I got the answer, those words are bullshit. Total bullshit. Those words when used for oneself set a limit, a limit to what you can do, who you can be, you cannot let those words become the cage that stop you from exploring your full potential.
Let's start by exploring first, what do you think of when you think of a person as an extrovert, the things that come to my mind are-- not anymore 😙🙌🏻-- people who are fearless, unafraid of showing their true-selves to the world, cool people, people worth admiring, and when I think of an extrovert, I used to think of people who keep to themselves, people who aren't comfortable with others, the word 'introverted' held a negative connotation for me, I know now that such definitions don't define a person. By labelling people into these categories we've made a big mistake. I know from experience that just because you are a so-called introvert does in no way signify that you've got nothing to say, no ideas to express, and just because you are an extrovert does not mean you should be under pressure to always express yourself and have world class ideas, you shouldn't have to force out unformed thoughts because you're expected to speak up first, you should and you deserve to express yourself on your terms, no one should have the ability to take from you what is the right of every creature, the expression of their thoughts, feelings, and most deepest epiphanies.
As we grow up, we realise that google does not have the answer to everything, we've become lazy due to internet, nowadays if you have a speech, you don't even bother to look into your mind, which will naturally have thoughts about the thing you're looking at, about your topic, rather your first instinct is to 'look it up' and then plagiarise someone else's thoughts, you must be thinking, "What's with this righteous bee?", I know you are, I would be too, if it was the me from before who was looking at this post, I would've cursed the writer too, and said, "I'm too busy to have my own opinion." But you see, this is the me from present, Leah has worked her ass off to understand why it is important to express oneself and how I can express what I feel. You know those days, at meetings with other people, or while having a conversation, you just don't understand why but you start blacking out, you zoom out of conversations, and you don't have much to say at meetings, then you turn your head and see this amazing colleague or friend who always has something to say next to you, and you wanna throw your coffee at them, how can they have so much to say, you don't realise it, but you zoom out because you think you won't have much to contribute anyway, or if you do, because you are not an 'extrovert', you aren't allowed or expected to speak, your confidence goes down, and you feel pressured to not raise your hand, or maybe, the incident that you might relate to, you know in math class, you knew the answer yet hesitated to say it, and then it turned out that your answer was right, and you were faster in getting it, but someone else said the answer first, don't those moments suck the most, what do you get out of suppressing your genius? Pain. I realised after taking a lot of bullshit excuses from myself as to why I couldn't speak in public, or give an answer on time, my excuses involved things like, "I'll do it next time.", or "It doesn't matter, I could've been wrong." or the most famous one, "I was just scared this time."
Again, you have to think too, I implore you to write it down, the reasons that you think hold you back when you know you have a lot to say. Are you, perhaps, worried about painting the world blue instead of red, seriously though, it might be because you're worried that if you make a mistake you'll make a fool out of yourself, but let me comfort you a little... unless, everyone has a memory like mine, I'm not bragging and it isn't a joke either, I remember incidents more than 12 years old in ridiculous detail, I have a weird memory that captures experiences and stores them like a movie, yet you see I focus on what happened to me, so it's highly unlikely that even I can recount the time some girl in my class got laughed at because she messed up, I'm not trying to paint myself as some memory goddess, focus on the main point here, the main point is that you do not recall things about others often unless you were directly affected by the situation; here's some stats to back me, for the nerds (No offence, I'm a nerd too 😘), "Adults can generally recall events from 3–4 years old, and have primarily experiential memories beginning around 4.7 years old." And what with digital dementia, dude, this is a safe zone! 🤭
What I'm trying to say, ultimately, is that it is unfortunate that we waste our lives worrying about what others might think when they won't remember it even if you fart in their face, 😂😂, okay that might be remembered, but otherwise, if you screw up, don't worry, who doesn't, perfection or flawlessness isn't an illusion, it is the result of hard work, those moments of sweating, when you're giving it your all, those don't go waste, but even after working yourself to death, we can make mistakes-- that file that you sent to your boss, right on time, got mixed up with the other one and you missed the deadline, or your assignment, you saw double for some reason and mixed up the subject you were supposed to submit first, hence you get a zero, then does that mean that you didn't do hard work, of course not, it just means that there is a lesson to learn in both these instances that I'm using as examples, even though we worked hard, we did not get a reward, instead you end up eating a tub of ice cream while crying along to a happy movie, what went wrong, nothing, you learnt something, your brain registered something, next time you'll double check, you know those lingering moments when we double check whether our car doors are locked, or check our exam dates thrice and then three more times, por que hacemos eso? The answer is simple, because something happened in the past, something that made you realise that rather than having to deal with the consequences later, it would be better and more efficacious to just check one more time. I'm sorry if you thought I was rambling but I was trying to prove my point there with subtlety laden with complexity 👽, I was trying to show you that work or no hard work, mistakes are inevitable, therefore, you can't live with the fear of not doing things because you are afraid you will make a mistake.
Next, a reason that we give for not doing things is worrying about reactions, I let slip something stupid out and Pretty Boy No. 1 will think lowly of me... huh, who cares, if I sound like an idiot? I have a personality that was not made perfect, you have to polish a diamond, you have to face the fire, my point is that it doesn't matter what other people think. Recently, I finished reading a book on Memory, translated by William Walker Atkinson, a lovely creation, and in it, I realised that we let people's suggestions get to us, let their thought waves disrupt us, but if we want to control that, you need to stop focusing, I know that sounds weird, but don't lose focus from your thoughts, imagine their is a protective shield around you and except from the old lady next door who is singing loudly, you can't hear anyone's thoughts, or guess at what they might be thinking. You'll feel free of constraints, and you have to protect yourself, filter out things that you want to hear and believe in. You are smart enough to do that. Just like bad juju, don't let bad thoughts get to you, a beautiful thought pops into my head, by Marcus Aurelius, "You are what you think", if your head is filled with utter disrespect for everyone, you will have a way of putting yourself down too. Therefore, give room to others to speak, and when it is your turn, you shall speak, being proud of the fact that you listened with a clean heart. And a smart mind.
What I've suffered with most, and sometimes still do, is opening up, crying out loud; ever heard that sentence, "I say what I mean." Yep, that is the one, it is a sentence that when I heard it, the first time, baffled me, I was shook and the person who had said this, about them, I thought one thing, they are so cool, they have got the guts to speak their mind. People who are shy are expected to be shy and those who are 'catchy' or 'popular' are all shackled, you see setting standards doesn't help either. You don't want to march off with the goal of saying everything you think from now on, usually, when we have to say something or make conversation, we can't, the reason? Oh, the reason, simple, because your thoughts aren't clear to you. How can you give a seminar on Glioblastoma, unless you've watched 'Doom At Your Service', you cannot. On a more serious and objective note, I am trying to say that you can't add two and two unless you know what 'addition' means, basically, you do have thoughts but since we don't really poke around on subjects much, our memories and thoughts have become rusty, you do know something, you just don't know how to pull it out, you have knowledge but you can't put it into words, if you plan to never practice saying your ideas out loud, then you'll be stuck like I was, try it! See how you feel. You don't actually have to give a seminar on Glioblastoma ( You must be curious, Glioblastoma is a sort of a tumour that grows in your brain. I'm not trying to make fun of the disease, god forbid, no, don't be offended, it is because of the reference that I'm using, the drama that I named, otherwise, I don't wanna come off as funny, I'm trying to nudge you to research a bit and find out about the disease and you'll be more informed.)
When talking about things, you do have thoughts, you're curious, and you want to know. Another thing to note is that, it is okay to let others speak, you can just listen if you want, do not force yourself and when you want to speak, don't hold back either, the best way to get better at speaking your mind, is focusing on your feelings, when you talk to your friend about your day, are you blabbering about nonsensical things, or did I just have a conversation that was deep with someone whom I just met? Observe more, pay attention, your mind is a unique search engine, whose search results can top Google's highest scores, there's millions of neurons there to assist you. Use your brawny brain.
Lastly, before I wrap up, I just want to say, try to ask yourself, do you really want to be within limits that don't exist. Don't ever think that you are an 'introvert' or 'extrovert', those words don't define you, you do, if speaking your mind seems impossible today, it will get easier tomorrow, I promise, practice makes perfect (OG 👌🏾), it takes only a little bit of belief, as Snape would say, to mix up a potion!!
Key points;- 'Introvert' and 'Extrovert' are baseless labels.
- Try to get to know yourself better.
- You do have ideas.
- Who cares what others think?
- Be an idiot!
Key points;
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