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Why I Like Being Shy
Despite how people have treated me, I wouldn’t want to be any other way.
People are all too quick to point out what shyness “takes away” from a person. “You need to talk more”, “If only you were more confident”, “You need to join in more” and so on. This can lead us to feel “if only I wasn’t shy”.
I spent so long wishing I could be an outgoing person and I blamed shyness for a lot of my problems. I was sure if I wasn’t shy so many things that had gone badly in my life would have been very different. But my personality had nothing to do with these things happening to me. In fact, it was my personality that had got me through those difficult times.
I have been thinking recently about what my shyness has given me. I still fall into the trap of thinking it is something defective and something that needs to be fixed, but I understand that it is other people’s perception of my shyness that has coloured my opinion of myself. I feel like I am on track to accepting I am shy and learning to like it.
For the times when I start to feel ashamed of my shyness, I have made a list of the things I feel shyness has given me. Sure, some of these things aren’t exclusively to do with shyness, but I feel if I was not shy these things would not exist in me.
