Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not.
Susan CainRead
To some extent, we've always had an admiration for extroversion in our culture. But the extrovert ideal really came to play at the turn of the 20th century when we had the rise of big business.
Interpretation
The quote highlights society's preference for extroverted behavior, particularly with the rise of business in the early 1900s.
Susan Cain's quote reflects on the cultural shift towards extroversion that occurred during the early 20th century, driven by the growth of big business. It suggests that admiration for extroverted traits became prevalent as society began to value assertiveness and sociability in professional and social contexts, overshadowing the contributions of introverts.
In practice
During a team meeting, one might discuss how extroverted qualities are often praised in corporate environments.
Shyness is the fear of social disapproval or humiliation, while introversion is a preference for environments that are not overstimulating. Shyness is inherently painful; introversion is not.
We need to do teacher training to educate them about what temperament means. Shyness is painful and you want to help a child with shyness - but the underlying temperament of being a careful, sensitive person is to be honoured, valued and respected.
But when the group is literally capable of changing our perceptions, and when to stand alone is to activate primitive, powerful, and unconscious feelings of rejection, then the health of these institutions seems far more vulnerable than we think.
We don't need giant personalities to transform companies. We need leaders who build not their own egos but the institutions they run.
What if you love knowledge for its own sake, not necessarily as a blueprint to action? What if you wish there were more, not fewer reflective types in the world?
[Introverts,] the world needs you and it needs the things you carry. So I wish you the best of all possible journeys and the courage to speak softly.
The longest journeyIs the journey inwards.Of him who has chosen his destiny, Who has started upon his quest For the source of his being.
Time rushes towards us with its hospital tray of infinitely varied narcotics, even while it is preparing us for its inevitably fatal operation.
If conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man's outward actions – if he continues to be just a snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he was before – then I think we must suspect that his 'conversion' was largely imaginary.
The drying up a single tear has more, of honest fame, than shedding seas of gore.
Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time, there would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed . . . I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other.
In nothing do humans approach so nearly to the gods as doing good to others.
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