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.