Journal 3: The power of Introverts

In Susan Cain’s video entitled “The Power of Introverts” she discusses some challenges she has faced throughout her life that have hindered her true self from being shown.  She mentions several situations and decisions she was a part of that encouraged her to put forth a more extroverted version of herself where in fact all she wanted to be was her own introverted self. 

Reflective: 

             After watching the video “The Power of Introverts” I felt really connected with Cain’s thoughts and situations she had been through as I too am a huge introvert myself!  I found myself nodding my head to practically everything she said!

Interpretive: 

Growing up in a small town and in a small family perhaps had a bit of an impact on my introverted tendencies.  From a young age I was a shy kid always clinging to my mom or dad.  But as Cain not so fondly recalls, this is considered as a social faux pas and we should all be more adventurous and outgoing.  True enough, my parents doing what they believed would be best for me put me in countless number of afterschool and weekend activates.  From ballet to gymnastics, swimming, girl guides, the list goes on.  Looking back at that today, I can truly appreciate all of the effort, time, and money my parents put into all of those extracurricular activities for me; however at the time it was nothing but that.

 As Cain mentioned all she wanted to do was read.  For me all I wanted to do was draw, paint, color, and make things with my hands.  I do think that making a child participate in something that they haven’t expressed or shown any interest in can be a challenging issue.  For example, I remember the first day of ballet I ended up crying because I didn’t know what I was doing whereas all of the other kids seemed to grasp on fairly quickly.  Swimming wasn’t that great either as I quickly realized I had a fear of water!  Cain’s message about letting somebody just be themselves really hit home.  Why not just let somebody be themselves and do what they want to do?

Decisional:     

I agree with Cain’s point about stopping the need for an abundance of group work or projects.  Sometimes it’s nice to just work by yourself and see what your own true capabilities are without having somebody to share the work or add their own opinions and thoughts. 

One of my most favorite quotes by Ralph Waldo Emerson is “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”  I think that this quote really ties into Cain’s main point of her video.  I do believe it is important to be open and share your thoughts with one another.  It is important to try new things occasionally to “change things up” per say.  But it shouldn’t be necessary to go beyond one’s comfort level just to be liked or to appear more engaging. 

References:

Cain, S. (2012). The power of introverts.  Retrieved from

http://www.ted.com/talks/susan_cain_the_power_of_introverts.html