Navigating The Q Word – Discovering The Power of Quiet

For years, I would have done anything to avoid being described as quiet. But I didn’t realize that my quest for self-growth would turn out to be mentally destructive.

I have always despised parents-teachers’ meetings. Not because I misbehaved as a child; I wasn’t loud, nor did I get in any sort of trouble. I just couldn’t understand why my mother would bother going if we know what the teachers were going to say in advance. The usual comments on my good manners, my excellent academic record (said as a preparation for what to come) would always be followed by the all-too-familiar “But, she is too quiet”.

I was indeed too quiet.

During recess, while most children played in the playground, I sat in the classroom reading a book. I rarely spoke in the classroom, and I mainly interacted with my small group of close friends. I was aware that I was quiet, but I simply did not mind it as I was perfectly content in my little world. Hence, I was puzzled by the number of people who were determined to help me “come out of my shell” and “overcome my shyness”.

Years later, in my teenage years, it seemed fitting to me that I would start caring about my own “problem”. By then I was convinced that my quiet nature is keeping me from realizing my full potential. Any time I would imagine my future, I would think of myself as having the exact opposite personality of mine. I wanted to be outgoing, charismatic, and assertive, and I tried desperately to alter my nature. I believed that this personality transformation that I was waiting for was the gateway to a bright future.  

However, my efforts fell short. Even though I joined every leadership program offered, volunteered in any given opportunity, the label of “shy” and “quiet” seemed to haunt me. The more I forced myself to behave extrovertly, the more miserable I felt. I also lost faith that the moment of transformation will ever come.

It was only a few years back that I randomly found a TED talk that singlehandedly changed the way I perceive my personality.  I was intrigued by its title: the power of introverts by Susan Cain. The combination of the words introversion and power seemed odd and somehow, wrong. Up until then, I thought of introversion as something I should be ashamed of – nothing about it was powerful. I remember getting emotional watching that talk for the first time. The comments section on that video was equally overwhelming, introverts from all over the world, commenting with stories that felt too close to mine. It turned out that I wasn’t part of a small group that went off track when it comes to social interactions: introverts counted for a third to a half of the world population. I truly wasn’t alone.

The video set me on a journey of self-discovery. I started reading and researching about introversion. And the more I learnt, the more at peace I became – all the voices that were telling me that I need to change started disappearing.

It is not easy to believe wholeheartedly that all the direct and indirect messages I was receiving growing up, which implied that it is abnormal to be introvert, were simply wrong. I’m still trying to accept that my occasional preference for solitude isn’t a defect that I should actively seek a cure for. Nonetheless, I’m glad that the only future that I envision now is one where I’m much kinder to myself and unapologetic about being quiet.