I recently finished the book Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking by Susan Cain. the book came out about a year and a half ago, and I seem to vaguely recall people talking about it back then. Shannon picked this up at the library as something that seemed interesting, and indeed, it does seem interesting, but the book came up a bit short, in my opinion.
I don't think it surprises anyone to say that American culture holds up an extrovert ideal. To get ahead in life we're constantly told to throw on our winning smile and tell our best anecdote. It's all about winning friends and influencing people, collecting Facebook friends and LinkedIn connections, twitter followers, big groups of friends and being the "life of the party." Well, it turns out that a pretty big chunk of people don't like that stuff, and aren't good at it. Personally, I generally come out as borderline introverted on the little quizzes that abound on the topic. Ms. Cain has devoted a book to explaining who introverts are, what they like, what they don't, and to remind the world that we aren't all natural born door-to-door security system salesmen.
While the book has plenty of interesting factoids, studies, stories and theories, it never managed to move the needle past "good" for me. I found the basic premise to be rather obvious "introverts have value, too!" and most of the major points of the book to be pretty obvious as well. Introverts can be more cautious, they need space to work quietly, privacy and time to relax away from stressful social settings. Many of these things are ideas that just about anyone could probably come up with if we spent some time to think about it - the thing is we probably haven't.
So, the book is good, and the topic worth thinking about even if I found the pace a bit slow at times. Even more valuable than the time spent reading it, is some time spent thinking about how we interact with different personalities in our every day lives, particularly people who spend a lot of time with people. This week at work I'm spending 12 hours a day in a room with just me and some whirring equipment - it's pretty loud, so it must be an extrovert. But hopefully this book prompts teachers to think about how it effects the introverts when every assignment turns into a group project, or managers to think about employees in open offices, or parents who are concerned about their kids social lives.
As an added LDS topic, I think we could do a lot more to talk about introversion and missionary work. What could be a better example of an extrovert lifestyle than 2 years in a foreign place approaching strangers about religion? And even for the many people who aren't full-time missionaries, what are the roles of introverts in spreading the gospel? To what extent so missionary messages tell introverts that they have to be extroverts? It's a stressful thing to put on that persona when it doesn't feel quite natural. And are there strengths of interverts that we're over looking because we can't hear over the noise of the extroverts?
This book is probably great for a book club like discussion, or something like that. Or, if you're introverted, you can just read it by yourself, I guess.
6 comments:
I never thought about how being an introvert affects missionary work, but it totally does. This is why the whole thing stresses me out. So what can introverts do to share the gospel? Let's think on that one.
Good thoughts, my dear.
I'd not limit it to missionary work. Obviously that's the most focused time of it, but I'd say most church callings push people toward extroversion. Auxiliary Presidencies, Bishoprics, Executive secretaries, etc. tend to be much more effective if they are naturally gregarious.
A mission never really appealed to me, and this is probably why. I'm very introverted. My job is actually more commonly held by introverts than by extroverts, which may not be what you expect. I guess I'm good at talking to random people about things I really like, but usually only in 15 minute intervals. Then at the end of the day I'm absolutely exhausted and I just want to read a book or watch TV in silence.
Here is an introvert/extrovert quiz: on a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being highest, how much do you enjoy calling someone up and talking on the phone? I'm like a -3, particularly if it's a group call or speakerphone is involved.
Ben, you're right that many church callings have very extroverted responsibilities. Full time missionaries and member missionary work are some of the most extroverted tasks in the church, but many other callings are similarly positioned. I've been playing the piano for the ward choir for 8 or 9 years now, and while at times it does get old, it's a great calling for an introvert.
Suzanne, on a scale of 1 to 10: -57473489. If there was a service to pay people to make doctors appointments and call Comcast to complain about your bill, Shannon and I would use it. We're tight wads and yet we would willingly do it just to avoid the phone calls.
Also, the book talks a bit about how most people are able to put aside their introversion when there is a task that is sufficiently meaningful to them. It's clear to anyone that knows you that your job is something that you are passionate about, and that passion overwhelms your introversion all day. And then you need to hid in your cave with a book to recover.
Finally, I'll remind the world that introverts are not anti-social. (Well, some of them are.) Introverts social in different ways (prefer smaller groups) and in different amounts, but we are still very social creatures. Introverts generally want all the same interactions as everyone else, just not cranked up to '11' like those crazy extroverts.
I play for ward choir and now they just tacked on primary. I forgot how loud the junior primary can be.
My mission president told us that the missionary program is modeled on the 1950s IBM sales force. So when Cain cited that and Harvard Business School (another place where outgoing Mormons seem to excel) as archetypes for the extrovert ideal, it really hit home for me.
It may be obvious to most people that "introverts have value, too," and it is to me now, but it wasn't at all obvious to me as a missionary. I understood the values and behaviors the mission promotes to be universal ("Christlike attributes," they called them) and the fact that I fell short in so many of these areas while my charismatic and outgoing brethren excelled really bothered me. I didn't realize at the time that it was okay for people to have different personalities and talents and predilections for missionary work. I took the fact that sharing the gospel was so distasteful to me as a spiritual failing on my part.
Anyway, it was refreshing to read that there were guys in those IBM sales force communities who felt the same way I did on my mission.
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