Good friend Matt Wiebe put me on to this. Sighs of relief, joy, feeling understood and firm thoughts of sending this to all my relationships, ever, carried me through this. I didn’t, but I thought about it.
I’ve often been incorrectly labeled as being an extrovert throughout my life, as I’m quite expressive and do considerable amounts of speaking in front of large crowds.
Then, friends and others find it strange that I hide so often, collapse after much public interaction (or avoid it altogether), or need space to be alone when I’m on a ministry trip or during my work week.
I do love being with certain groups of people, but I am energized when I’m alone. Alone. It has such a nice sound to it.
A Thursday Postscript:
The last few days, I have had an amazing convergence of completely separate conversations, not initiated by me, on the topics of introversion/extroversion, The Way They Learn material (concrete sequential, abstract sequential, abstract random, concrete random personalities), First Things First material (Covey’s push to make the “important but not urgent” items part of your routine), Getting Things Done material (David Allen’s material on workflow), and how to fit your work environment to your workstyle.
I often put these things in the back burner, and let them hum along. But, in a time of much work happening and preparations for the school year, these have come bubbling to the surface in a beautiful way the last day or two.
It feels like God is putting his finger on the importance of self-awareness, for the sake of relationships and productive action in the world, at least for me and a number of friends in our community here.
13 Comments
Ahhh the often misunderstood introvert with extrovert tendencies. That is me too.
sigh … tis moi … at last somebody understands me! i get so tired of ’splaining myself.
Just what I needed - I blogged it and linked too, thank you! I have shamed myself for far too long for hating parties and enjoying being alone. Great thoughts.
Fantastic stuff, at last we are being recognised rather than diagnosed
As an introvert it’s nice to know that God might actually have made me this way for a reason, I’m not just an opressed/depressed/broken extrovert.
Anyway, I need to be alone now
… I can relate … I’ve tried to explain that ratio of 2-to-1 (party-time to recovery-alone-time) to people before, but no one believes me. Now I have an internet article to back up my claim !
such a chord this hits, eh?
gee…i totally get the 2-to-1 thing! But I am not sure I am a total introvert.
What I would like to know is how to parent an introvert and bless them in who they are?
From my perspective, give them room, give them space, away from people, and yet don’t allow them to wallow in isolation. If I had my choice, I would be alone most of the time, but I experience the strange unhealthiness of that craving over time.
I think a parent’s role is to cover and protect the way the child re-energizes, but not to cater to it in a world that demands interaction. Genius can hide behind the introversion, and boucoup love, affection and support, in my mind, turns that genius into an outward gift that can benefit the wider community.
Interesting article Dan. I finally read and I guess I could say it confirmed a lot of what I already knew about myself as a classic introvert.
The only thing that troubled me slightly was this undertone throughout the article that the author was still trying to justify to the world who he is as an introvert. There’s no winner or looser in this game in the end. We are who we are and I’m comfortable in that.
As far as parenting an introvert goes, to me there’s two things that need to happen at the same time. Do everything you can to make the child comfortable with who he or she is. There’s no need to have to conform or develop into someone that the world (read: extroverts) demand. At the same time you must guide the child through the process of them finding their place in that world and how to integrate into it. There’s all sorts of sub-issues to work through here but that’s two general principles.
Glad that many people found this to be an engaging, if somewhat overstated, article. I know that I had to get a massage after all that head-nodding!
Dan,
If you are interested in reading further re: introversion v extraversion there are some good books out there. Lifekeys; Type Talk at Work (and other MBTI material); Do what you are. etc Knowing how you are created can really help to ‘give life’.
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