Being shy isn’t just an attitude. It can be a lifestyle and even a great hindrance to getting what you want in life.
My parents and family tell me that as a young child that I was fairly forward and active. Not at all shy and I always wanted to be in the thick of things. So what happened?
I’m not sure exactly when it happened but surely somewhere in my pre-teens I started becoming more withdrawn and quiet. I shunned being loud and drawing attention to myself. I even began dressing down. Not in a somber fashion like a goth but more in a plain fashion. I started to fade into the background. See my previous post.
I really didn’t care to stand out in any way. If I did something praiseworthy I would try to play it down and minimize it as if it wasn’t anything special.
In my mid 20’s I began to notice that this wasn’t the best attitude to have in life. People that I knew that were less talented than me but more boisterous began getting ahead in life and I was being left behind. It turned out that self promotion wasn’t a sin.
For a long time I resisted any sort of change. To me, humility was the greatest of virtues and casually discarding that was unthinkable.
Eventually circumstances forced me to be more proactive. My new position at work, in sales, demanded someone who was more proactive and forward and I started to come out of my shell. Sometimes too much. I had to learn just how much I could come out before I got obnoxious.
By my thirties I felt I had emerged sufficiently and I’ve tried maintaining myself at a comfortable level. It is a struggle. I have to admit that at times that I still don’t want to engage with the world. But I also realize that life revolves around the other people in your life and that the only way that it is going to work is if I become more sociable and not less.
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