Celebrating My Quiet Life

As I approach my 50th birthday, it feels like I have reached the summit of a fourteener after climbing for hours. I have turned my ankle a couple of times, my fingers are swollen from the altitude, my head aches a bit, but I made it to the top! Getting older changes your perspective on life, just as being on top of a mountain expands your view of the country below. I have learned to accept myself for who I am, to honor my strengths, and to stop trying to stuff my square shape into a round hole.

At the top of a 14'er in 2003

In Susan Cain's book Quiet, The Power of Introverts in a World that Can't Stop Talking, she explores some of the ways that the American culture holds up extroversion as the ideal personality type and how we collectively miss out when we don't acknowledge the gifts of introverts. At Harvard Business School, for example, a student's grades and social status are largely determined by being extroverted - by talking in class and socializing outside class. That's great if being talkative comes naturally to you. Yet as Cain points out, the best decisions may not get made when we listen to those who are the loudest and most extroverted and ignore the quiet, deep thinkers who have so much to offer.

As a shy child, I often felt uncomfortable, even nervous, in social situations. I became anxious when a teacher asked me to read out loud in class. I didn't like to be the center of attention. It was hard for me to talk to people I didn't know. It took me awhile to warm up to people. Today, I am still that socially awkward person. However, I am more self confident than I was as a child, because I now know that my brain is wired differently than 50-70% of the population and I've learned to value my "innie" strengths.

First Grade

Although Quiet primarily approaches introversion from a cultural point of view, Cain also discusses the work of a couple of people who have studied introversion from a biological or behavioral point of view. Jerome Kagan is a developmental psychologist who studied babies and observed that some of them were highly reactive to unfamiliar sights, sounds, and smells. They cried and moved their arms and legs more than other babies. According to Kagan, children with highly reactive temperaments have the "biologically prepared tendency" to be cautious.

Me as a highly reactive baby?

In Quiet, Cain also discusses the ideas of Dr. Elaine Aron, a psychotherapist who researches highly sensitive people. Several of Dr. Aron's observations about the highly sensitive resonate with me.

• Highly sensitive people are more philosophical or spiritual rather than materialistic or hedonistic
• Highly sensitive people process information about their environments deeply
• Highly sensitive people have strong consciences
• Highly sensitive people think in a complex way
• Highly sensitive people tend to love music, nature, art and physical beauty (it's nature for me!)

According to Cain, introverts are more likely than extroverts to say that they can express the "real me" online. I agree! We may express intimate things about ourselves online that our friends and family would be surprised to find out. For me, blogging lets me fully compose my thoughts in a way that I cannot do out loud.

from Susan Cain's Facebook page

Susan Cain's advice to people like me is to use your gifts and "stay true to your own nature."

You have the power of persistence, the tenacity to solve complex problems, and the clear-sightedness to avoid pitfalls that trip others up. You enjoy relative freedom from the temptations of superficial prizes like money and status. Indeed, your biggest challenge may be to fully harness your strengths.

I appreciate and admire the strengths of extroverts - gregariousness, assertiveness, leadership skills, etc. But I am also grateful for the strengths that come with my quiet nature - persistence, discernment, self-discipline, the ability to focus on the details, and even the little filter in my head that so often tells me "maybe you shouldn't say that."

I need quiet to think. I need quiet to reflect. I need quiet for peace. I need quiet to be me.

1 Peter 3:3-4 New International Version

³ Your beauty should not come from outward adornment, such as elaborate hairstyles and the wearing of gold jewelry or fine clothes. ⁴ Rather, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight.