"Quiet"

That's the name of the book I'm reading, subtitled "The Power of Introverts in a World That Won't Stop Talking." I've only just started, but it makes me want to stay up later just to read it. It argues the point that our world has gone from a Culture of Character (back when integrity, work ethic, and virtue meant something) to a Culture of Personality (where the most eloquent, glamorous, and youthful win out), and that because of that, introverts have become a sort of "second-class citizen, somewhere between a disappointment and a pathology."

Does that hit home with anyone else? I almost cringe at the amount of time I spent feeling like a disappointment because of my introversion (I answered "yes" to 17 of 20 screening questions to identify introverts). And the rest of the book lays out that we can benefit from the gifts that introverts offer--the ability to listen, work independently, and see things differently.

One of the interesting points in the first part of the book was how Christians can often feel like failures if they are introverts, because evangelization is much more tangible if you are extroverted. I have often felt like God is calling me to be more involved, meet more people, attend more events. But what if He's calling me to be my introverted self? To listen and engage a select few and encourage them? To quietly trust and be the best I can be, even if that's someone who stays home on Friday night?

The more I meet true introverts, the less I feel like an oddity; and the more I understand that certain things about me relate to that specific trait, the more I can accept it. I always felt guilty that I often let my phone ring through to voice mail or that I never wanted to run for student council or that working on group projects is painful. I felt somehow inadequate, but research shows that at least to a certain extent, introversion is genetically hard-wired, and a lot of it depends on our early environment as well. Not that I'm completely pigeon-holed by that one characteristic or that I don't need to challenge myself, but it's freeing to see that I don't have to change who I am. I have gifts to offer just as much as the student body president does.