Thursday, January 23, 2014

Yay for extroverts

I came across a test to find out if a person is extrovert or introvert. I didn't take the test for that reason, I took to see how much extrovert I was. As expected, it said I am 89% extrovert. I don't think anyone should be surprised.

This world favors introverts. Just look up on Google and you'll see tons of articles favoring introverts. They talk about how introverts can be good leaders, how introvert bosses are better, how an introvert can learn to cope with an extrovert partner, how to fairly treat shy kids. A blogger mentioned, introverts are treated like "glass babies" but there's no mention of help for extroverts. We are the loud ones, the bullies, the dominating people, the ones who would try to lead at all times so why care to write about us?

It's wrong.

Extroverts, especially when they are kids and don't know the reason of their actions, can also be mistreated and made to feel bad. A kid doesn't know that it is the extroversion that is making him talk too much or try to jump up and greet a shy friend. So scolding him wouldn't really make anything better, on the contrary it makes the kid lose his normal happy self. As an over enthusiast person, I know this very well. In school, decades back, I was continuously told to stop talking. It was distracting to the other students. Really? I don't think so. I think they were bored too, but they lacked the mindset to do something. So they just sat there without doing anything, whereas the extroverts got ready to amuse themselves. I generally get excited too much and too often, but I was told to "calm down" millions of times by millions of people. Why? I don't know. I was told about various classmates and asked, why I could not be as serious as them. And of course, the famous faux pas of extroverts is something I followed almost my entire life. Blurting out something and then realizing that it was wrong. A girl who talks too much and is too loud, who is very opinionated and speaks up is still not considered to be good. 

Can you imagine a world without extroverts? That would be a bunch of people living in their own bubbles, hardly ever speaking to one another. There would be no supply of enthusiasm, of happy cheer, of going out of your own comfort zone and making new friends... I would so not want to live there. There would be no leaders and mind it, trying to dominate is not always a bad thing. If you are right and you need to mold many people to follow you, you must be able to override them. You must have people following you. Look at the famous extroverts in the world - Abraham Lincoln, Nelson Mandela, MLK Jr., Margaret Thatcher, Steve Jobs. I am not saying there aren't famous introverts. One of my very favorite people in the current world, Bill Gates is an introvert. But what I am trying to say is the qualities in extroverts which are looked down upon as dominating, bullying, too loud, etc are not necessarily that bad. Those are needed too.

If I was given an option, I would still want to choose to be an extrovert. Why do I love being an extrovert?

1. You think about something/someone, you say that aloud and be done with it. Others would also know what exactly you mean.

2. Speak up and solve problems. Kind of related to the previous one. We ask questions, reach out to people and in turn get ourselves out of the sticky situations.

3. Meet and greet. I love to meet new people and know them. And is there any way to know about people without talking to them?

4. We are the BOLD ones! And I love being bold.

5. I'm biased towards bright chirpy kids. The ones that raise their hands to answer questions in class are most likely to volunteer for different things in their later lives. 

6. Like I said, I am a little over enthusiastic about stuff but that gives me an option to try out new things for myself. Sometimes that helps others too.

That said, let's end this with a funny thing.
http://www.buzzfeed.com/jessicamisener/frustrating-things-about-being-an-extrovert

No comments: