strong opinions: It's okay to be an introvert.

Disclaimer: I guess this post kind of qualifies as Marcelaine getting up on her soapbox. Well, I feel like getting up on a soapbox, so I'm going to do it. So, just to let you know, this is a slightly opinionated, getting-on-a-soapbox type of post.

I am an introvert. About the time I became a teenager, I started to get pressure to stop being so shy from all sorts of different sources--seminars intended to make middle school girls feel good about themselves, friends who were crazy and thought that meant they were confident, even well-meaning young women leaders who were very extroverted. I would go to stake dances and my leaders and extroverted people who pitied me would come up and tell me to go get out on the dance floor and be crazy and have fun. I wouldn't say much at young women's activities and a leader would tell me I needed to be more outgoing. I would go to activities arranged by the school that were supposed to unify our class, and they would have us do things that were meant to make us be more outgoing, which I just thought were silly. Most of my teenage life, I had this underlying goal to become more outgoing, and most people seemed to think that meant being crazy.

I think the problem with this is that sometimes people mistakenly believe that to be confident you have to be extroverted. I always felt like if I was more confident, I would behave like that one girl who was in the middle of the room at the stake dance doing the Napoleon Dynamite dance, that I would be yelling and clapping and being silly at the football games instead of hoping it would end soon so I could put my frozen oboe away because I was bored (oboes don't do so well in cold air). Now, I like extroverts. We need extroverts. I know many kind, amazing, talented people who are extroverts. But I think it would be horrible if everybody was like that.

I think I was in my second year of college when I completely figured out that I didn't have to give in to the pressure to be crazy. I realized that being crazy doesn't mean you're confident--in fact, I realized that sometimes people act like that when they're feeling insecure. I also realized that my quietness is a good thing. For example, I had extroverted roommates who would confide in me, and I believe my quiet nature facilitated that. In other words, it's okay that I'm a quiet person. It's how I was created, and I was given that quality because it enables me to serve God in a specific way. Once I stopped worrying about being outgoing, I was able to value my own qualities and characteristics that were given to me by Someone who had a work for me to do, Someone who knows me better than I know myself.

I imagine missionaries would understand this concept. I think there are some people investigating the church who would respond well to a missionary who is a little crazy (but still sincere), while others would respond better to a more serious, quiet missionary. Both types of people are good and serve important purposes in God's kingdom.

Like any other teenage girl, I did have some room to improve in the area of confidence. But I was confident in some ways. I frequently shared thoughts and answered questions during young women's lessons, and I think I said those things with conviction and sincerity. I wasn't very nervous or reluctant to give talks in sacrament meeting. I performed as a soloist on the piano and oboe many times while I was a teenager, and I even gave a senior recital. I wasn't scared to do that. I did get nervous sometimes, but it wasn't scary. I think as they got to know me, my young women leaders eventually recognized that I was confident in those areas. When I graduated, several of them told me how much they admired and appreciated me for the talents that I had and for my testimony. I'm also certain that my parents saw my confidence in those areas (better than I did) and encouraged me. I can't think of any time when I felt pressure from them to be more extroverted. I think they recognized that I was created to be a quiet person for a reason, and they simply taught me the gospel so that I could use the gifts I had been given.

I realize that introvert/extrovert, shy/outgoing, etc. are pretty simplistic ways to categorize people. I think that's part of the point I'm trying to make. If we automatically put people into the shy/insecure/introverted/not confident bucket or the extroverted/crazy/outgoing/confident bucket and label the first bucket "bad" and the second bucket "good", we're missing out on what they are really like. If we truly want to see people as God sees them, then we have to get to know them better than that, and as we become better acquainted with each other we start to benefit from each other's gifts.