Being an introvert is one of the ways I define myself most prominently. It’s not something measured to a degree or a percent; anytime I read examinations or descriptions of introversion, I feel I’m a textbook example and usually find myself checking off each box in the personality inventory. There have only been a handful of times when reading a book completely changed my life. The first time I read Susan Cain’s book Quiet was one of them. Being an introvert is an interior thing I’ve learned to closely protect, so it’s not really something everyone around me is aware of or clearly understands. It doesn’t have anything to do with being antisocial, or shy, or not liking people, regardless of the simple and convenient ways people who don’t know any better would like to label it. It has more to do with how social interaction affects your mindset and energy level.
During this past week, I had to endure one of the most unpleasant moments I’ve had this entire school year, when an impromptu ten-minute staff meeting was called for the specific reason of embarrassing me in front of the staff with some farcical award. I’m not exaggerating here; the principal made one quick general information announcement before the festivities began, and the meeting wrapped up as soon as they were over. I pretended to play along, because what other choice did I have, but as soon as it was over, my teaching partner, who knows who I really am better than most people at our school, caught me in the hallway. She smiled sympathetically and said, “So that probably wasn’t your favorite meeting of the year, was it?”
Now, before I start solidifying any impression that all of this was done with any sense of spite or malice or I’m holding residual grudges about it, let’s be clear that isn't the case. It was all intended to be good-natured fun, and I put it all behind me as soon as it was over. The ringleaders behind this get-together are people I’m completely confident have no idea of my true introverted nature or to what degree it defines me. It was all one of those “thanks for being such a good sport” moments, but, if you think about it, anytime someone is thanked for being a good sport they’re really being thanked for putting up with being forced into uncomfortable moments for the amusement of others, which, in general, I don’t think much of as far as an example of how to fulfill your role as a part of any team. But when you work in an environment where, to be blunt, introversion is not valued, and that really describes too much of education, moments like the one I experienced occasionally come with the territory. Sometimes to do the things you think are important, you just have to pick your battles and move on.
But, as it must seem like practically everything does, it got me thinking. How many different interpretations of who I am are there in just the school where I work? Each relationship we have with different people can build a separate perception. We have close to one hundred people working on our staff, and I only really feel like I know a fraction of them. There are dozens of people I never cross paths with or have ever had the chance to get to know because our schedules and responsibilities never bring us together. What might they have been thinking about why that meeting was even held, or why I was anyone who merited that kind of attention? How many of my other friends were silently cringing because they knew how painful that was for me? How many people were just innocently just laughing it up because they saw it nothing more than a harmless moment of tension breaking at the end of a truly ugly week, and I must have been on board with it all? How many people were in that audience who don’t think much of me and enjoyed watching me have to twist in the wind like that?
From that list of unanswerable speculation alone, I could be seen and defined as half a dozen different people just from whatever partial connections or impressions I’ve made on the people I work with, to say nothing of how I would define myself. And who’s to say that my definition of self is any more or less valid than how someone else might view me? Is it possible the people around us in lives have clearer pictures of the people we truly are than we do ourselves?
Most of the people we encounter in life are never going to be people we truly know. Unless we have one of those rare connections with them that make them truly an open book to us, we can’t know what makes up their interior lives. We can’t know their thoughts and fears. We won’t feel their joy. We aren’t able to clearly see how much they value, or how they even define, traits like honesty or loyalty. When characteristics like these are left as closed doors to us, it’s easy human nature to try and fill in the blanks on our own, even if we end up filling in too many of those blanks with perspectives that have more to do with how we might view the world than trying to understand them.
If anything good came out that brief staff meeting of the absurd for me, maybe it will just be the reminder that I also need to work more at trying to see people for who they are, instead of how I might pigeonhole them into my own backdrop.
We have a lot of stress bouncing around our school these days, and it likely isn’t going to evaporate off any time soon. Maybe trying to appreciate how others are feeling about all we’re going through will be more productive and compassionate than deciding for them.
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