I thought I was depressed; turns out I'm only introverted

The Quiet Power of Introverts

This is going to be personal, to a point. But, bear with me, it will make sense at the end.

Have you ever come across someone shamelessly boasting about his talents and experience? Some people are so good at it, they climb the ladder based on nothing else but self-promotion. All you need to do is have boundless self-confidence and enough yapping talent to convince the others around you, especially those higher up the food chain, that you are what you say you are. 

I was brought up in a society and environment where the saying goes "self-promotion is worthless" (loosely translated), meaning one is supposed to show his true worth with his work, not his words. True to the old wisdom, I found my niche and built my reputation without having to advertise it. But then I moved to Canada. With about 15 years experience as photojournalist, I thought it'd be easy to find work. Yet, on my first job in Calgary, an editor told me that I should be more assertive, that I'm too quiet. And I tried. I competed with lesser photographers, who were more verbal. While I could outdo them with work, they've always outdone me in the newsroom. They moved up, I stayed put. Imagine the hit my self-confidence took!

For a long while I thought I was discriminated against as an immigrant. I thought the Canadian-born were getting the chance, while I, a foreigner, will always stay on the sidelines. Typical immigrant's story, right? I thought so too, until a few weeks ago, when I started reading a book that turned this whole perception upside down. It's called "Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking" by Susan Cain. 

Did you know that one third of the global population are introverts? That is not a derogative - it's a personality trade. They (we!) are people highly sensitive to the outside stimuli and overstimulation; the ones who prefer peace and quiet over loud and busy; the ones who'd rather have a serious conversation with one person, than entertain a crowd with small talk and trivial jokes. There are whole civilizations based on preferences toward introverts or extroverts. Asian society, at least until recent wave of westernization, valued quiet thoughtful types, who were considered wise and studious. Western Europe and North America are the kingdoms of extroverts - the outspoken, the loud, the good presenters, the self-promoters. They are the risk takers, the leaders, and sometimes the troublemakers. The introverts in the West are the thinkers, the creators. Some famous introverts are Steve Wozniak, who started the whole personal computer revolution from the quiet of his solitary home workroom, Eleanor Roosevelt, a U.S. humanitarian and diplomat who had to fight her shyness to do her work, Albert Einstein who preferred his formulas to his peers.

The book is full of scientific and scholarly studies explaining why is it so that I hate confrontations of any kind, that I'm so distracted by the din of the open office space, its constant buzz and rings of telephones, to the point that it cuts my productivity by half. It also explains how some of my colleagues blabbered their way to promotions and why it worked in the environment which values extroverts and considers quiet types backward, less intelligent and slow. 

So, if you find it difficult to talk loud at a party, to hold empty conversations, and prefer to be on your own reading a book, or with one good friend talking about the essence of life - don't worry, you're not depressed, neither are you dumb or weird. Welcome to my third of the world's best - the creative, the inventors, the artists, the thinkers! Without us, conversation would be a shouting contest, with the loudest ideas prevailing. Without us, our extroverted friends would be deprived of the sound advice; the books would be fewer, the innovation slower; the world would be more chaotic. We are the quiet power behind the noise.