I used to think that my primary talent was verbal ability. That was dumb and I was wrong. Though I’m a good writer, my primary talent is a tendency towards extroversion. Extroversion is an unreasonably effective life strategy, and I naturally adopt it to an unusual degree.
Yeah, I'll get right on being more extroverted just as soon as I'm done being taller and more handsome. Oh, and I've been thinking about changing my sexual orientation too—might try that first.
Seriously, do you think it's not obvious to introverts that extroversion is very beneficial? It's *extremely* obvious. I can and do "turn on" the extroversion sometimes because I know how useful it is. But I'll always be drained by it. Always. Everyone in my family is this way. We are just not wired to be extroverted. Rather, we do our best in a society that expects it anyway.
The capability of being social is THE shit (whether or not pure intro/extroversion is a thing).
I was shy as a kid, then got bullied in school and completely clammed up for a good ten years before a quarter-life crisis nudged me in a more extroverted direction. And even then it still took another good part of a decade before it became a part of me, where it's what I am, and not what I'm trying to be.
And boy would I love to take the me of today and redo the whole school and 20-something part. Looking back at my actions from 5-10-15 years ago I'm painfully aware of how much opportunities I wasted back then because of my inability to socialize AND my inability to even comprehend this fact.
With every person you meet, there's a 1% chance that something serendipitous will happen from that meeting. It's an effect with compound interest too: usually one of the good serendipitous things is being introduced to someone else, further increasing the chance of good things happening.
I would also say that the farther down the serendipity-network chain you go, e.g. being introduced to someone by someone who you were introduced to by [...] at a dinner 3 years ago, the higher the odds are that you'll find a good opportunity.
If you think about the whole 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, it only takes 6 levels of networking/serendipitous introductions to match you to your dream team, dream person, etc! To get you to where you need to be.
I know this post is over two years old now, but I found it really interesting.
I've never been chatty or outgoing, but I do recognise the benefits of it. My problem is that by default I find most people... Boring. I know, logically, that they probably aren't - they've had a hundred and one unique experiences that I haven't, they've had ups and downs, they've had interesting successes and failures. I suspect several of the people who are now close friends are people who I considered boring when I first met them, but the subsequent warmth I've felt in their company has blurred the truth of the past (I have poor episodic memory, so I don't remember first meeting any of my close friends anyway).
But moving from stranger to friend, or even stranger to one-off contact who changes my life/behaviour in some way, requires me to push through that initial tedium I find in their prescence. Sometimes I ask questions that I don't actually care about the answer to (before or after), or try to keep a conversation going because I know it's what I'm "supposed" to do (I often imagine I'm a sim and my social bar is turning green!). And I hate doing that. I hate feeling inauthentic (even though I know "authenticity" is a whole problem in and of itself, I'm still fixated on it).
I think I am slowly improving. I push myself a little more to engage in conversation in group situations, even if I feel I'm a little fake, and I can find pleasure in conversations with strangers even when I never see them again. But 90% of the time I struggle to engage. My problems with engaging aren't exclusive to social situations (I'm not a very functional person), but your post just highlighted this issue for me.
I've recently discovered that I'm an introvert thanks to the book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain (highly recommend!). It can be challenging to accept especially in a society that venerates the "extrovert ideal." But introverts have their special gifts to share!
As a previous introvert with some "extroverted" tendencies I've definitely found being a low-key alcoholic (within reason...) a great way to provide some amount of exposure therapy to conquer the less pleasant parts of being introverted.
I would guess you are somewhat similar to me in that we come down less extreme on the introvert-extrovert axis which is why the idea of hacking our personalities one way or another seems both plausible and useful.
Yeah, I'll get right on being more extroverted just as soon as I'm done being taller and more handsome. Oh, and I've been thinking about changing my sexual orientation too—might try that first.
Seriously, do you think it's not obvious to introverts that extroversion is very beneficial? It's *extremely* obvious. I can and do "turn on" the extroversion sometimes because I know how useful it is. But I'll always be drained by it. Always. Everyone in my family is this way. We are just not wired to be extroverted. Rather, we do our best in a society that expects it anyway.
The capability of being social is THE shit (whether or not pure intro/extroversion is a thing).
I was shy as a kid, then got bullied in school and completely clammed up for a good ten years before a quarter-life crisis nudged me in a more extroverted direction. And even then it still took another good part of a decade before it became a part of me, where it's what I am, and not what I'm trying to be.
And boy would I love to take the me of today and redo the whole school and 20-something part. Looking back at my actions from 5-10-15 years ago I'm painfully aware of how much opportunities I wasted back then because of my inability to socialize AND my inability to even comprehend this fact.
I was just talking to a friend about this:
With every person you meet, there's a 1% chance that something serendipitous will happen from that meeting. It's an effect with compound interest too: usually one of the good serendipitous things is being introduced to someone else, further increasing the chance of good things happening.
I would also say that the farther down the serendipity-network chain you go, e.g. being introduced to someone by someone who you were introduced to by [...] at a dinner 3 years ago, the higher the odds are that you'll find a good opportunity.
If you think about the whole 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon thing, it only takes 6 levels of networking/serendipitous introductions to match you to your dream team, dream person, etc! To get you to where you need to be.
I know this post is over two years old now, but I found it really interesting.
I've never been chatty or outgoing, but I do recognise the benefits of it. My problem is that by default I find most people... Boring. I know, logically, that they probably aren't - they've had a hundred and one unique experiences that I haven't, they've had ups and downs, they've had interesting successes and failures. I suspect several of the people who are now close friends are people who I considered boring when I first met them, but the subsequent warmth I've felt in their company has blurred the truth of the past (I have poor episodic memory, so I don't remember first meeting any of my close friends anyway).
But moving from stranger to friend, or even stranger to one-off contact who changes my life/behaviour in some way, requires me to push through that initial tedium I find in their prescence. Sometimes I ask questions that I don't actually care about the answer to (before or after), or try to keep a conversation going because I know it's what I'm "supposed" to do (I often imagine I'm a sim and my social bar is turning green!). And I hate doing that. I hate feeling inauthentic (even though I know "authenticity" is a whole problem in and of itself, I'm still fixated on it).
I think I am slowly improving. I push myself a little more to engage in conversation in group situations, even if I feel I'm a little fake, and I can find pleasure in conversations with strangers even when I never see them again. But 90% of the time I struggle to engage. My problems with engaging aren't exclusive to social situations (I'm not a very functional person), but your post just highlighted this issue for me.
I've recently discovered that I'm an introvert thanks to the book "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain (highly recommend!). It can be challenging to accept especially in a society that venerates the "extrovert ideal." But introverts have their special gifts to share!
Sasha's law - people would benefit from being more extroverted, even when you take into account Sasha's law :)
As a previous introvert with some "extroverted" tendencies I've definitely found being a low-key alcoholic (within reason...) a great way to provide some amount of exposure therapy to conquer the less pleasant parts of being introverted.
I would guess you are somewhat similar to me in that we come down less extreme on the introvert-extrovert axis which is why the idea of hacking our personalities one way or another seems both plausible and useful.
Agreed, but how? How is the hard part