Looking Back on AuGuest: The Importance of Self

On this, the final Monday of August, on wanted to take some time to reflect on AuGuest 2011, and what it has meant to me and this blog.

To begin with, I once again wanted to thank my four contributors; Zoyah Thawer, Samantha Karol, Diana Antholis, and Noel Rozny. They each took time out of their busy schedules and their own writings and social media activities to add something to Too XYZ. An effort for which they received no compensation, and for which they will in all likelihood gain no fame, given the small reach of this blog of mine. It is much appreciated.

All four of these people offered something a little different, and did so in a different style. To each of their posts I wrote my own response, so I will not go into my thought on each again here. But I will say that despite the diversity of views and background for my AuGuests this year, I have in fact detected one commonality: the important of knowing and caring for the Self.

In Zoyah's case it was making sure she did not let herself become consumed by the bitterness of her situation. Samantha did not allow confusing and frustration over her unfair exclusions from groups affect the way she reached out and offered herself honesty to other people in a similar circumstance. Diana expressed how vital it was for her, and all of us, to remain confident in the direction we feel out inner most self is calling us to take in life, and Noel mentioned that despite her extroversion she has been faced lately with the occasional need to take a step back and look inward, to get a better understanding of and to provide better care to herself.

Yet it none of these cases did the slightest hint of selfishness appear. That is because caring for your self, and letting that all important center of our souls guide us as we nurture it and take care of it is not the same as selfishness. Selfishness is an ego driven state of mind with no regard to morals or the affects our actions have on other people. It caters mostly to immediate gratifications piggybacking on greater lifetime goals. That is as destructive to the selfish person as it is to the people they trample on the way to what they want. Perhaps more so.

Yet to be careful with our self, respect our inner life and make-up, no matter how different from the status quo that may be, and to, yes show love to what we are at our core, even as we accept the chance to improve upon it without pressure is to bring about the best possible version of who we are. To enhance that with which we are born, and to add to it things that we have determined we can achieve through heard work, thus giving both ourselves and the world the most potent entity we can be in service to the good around us. Not self serving cads nor slaves tied to the leash of a demanding society. Right in the middle can be found the transcendence of caring for the self.

That is what I got out of the messages of all four of my AuGuests this year. And I hope they, and each of you readers got something out of their contributing to Too XYZ as well. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that as time goes on.

AuGuest Post: A Whole Lot of "E" and a Little Bit of "I" by Noel Rozny

I stood at the outskirt of the bachelorette party speechless. For once in my life I didn’t have much to say.

This, for me, was unusual. I love talking to people. Being in loud, rowdy conversations at a party on a Friday night is as essential to me as food and water. Without human interaction, I wilt. (Really, it’s true. I tried it one winter when I worked from home during a blizzard. By the third day I was so bored I was talking out loud to the voices in my head.)

Perhaps it’s genetics. Or perhaps it’s conditioning. Or perhaps it’s because my parents decided to drop that umlaut over the “e” in my name. But whatever the reason, I have always considered myself to be a highly-expressed extrovert.

That was until recently. In the past few months, there has been much of my usual desire to get in touch with friends on the East Coast, see old roommates for coffee, and make jokes to the lady next to me on the train. But there have also been instances of an extreme need to be alone, to shut out the noise of the world and sit in the stillness of my apartment. They arise like the aurora borealis on the horizon, unexpected and unexplained and strangely hypnotic. They suck me into their gravitational pull, and I find myself unable to resist.

When they first showed themselves, I felt a rumble in the distance and a slow, oncoming cloud of fear. When you have thought of yourself one particular way for most of your adult life, as a people person or a social being or whatever you want to call it, the threat of that piece of your personality disappearing is terrifying. It means trying to find a new way to exist in the world.

But after the third and fourth and fifth time these spells appeared, I figured that like any natural phenomena, there was no stopping them. So I decided to sit down and shut up and ride out the storm. And by doing so, I found the center. I found the eye.

There have been a lot of changes swirling around me these past eight months (a whole different blog post or four) and in the chatter of the world, I found an escape from them. But the hidden introvert in me, the one I never even knew existed, knew better. She knew I needed some quiet and some space and some time to reflect to get my house in order. And she wasn’t about to go unnoticed.

So after my initially panic, I slowly learned to embrace this need for quiet. I found that there is as much energy to draw from the inside as I often discover in the world around me. I learned that I have more “I” in me than I ever imagined, and I’ve learned that can be a very good thing. 

AuGuest: My Response to Diana

In her AuGuest post on Monday, Diana Antholis uses her experience in graduate school as a backdrop. Having never been to graduate school myself, I can't relate to this aspect of the post. Yet one of the reasons I liked this post so much is that the perspectives she provides in same are applicable to many situations in which one might find themselves overwhelmed, alone, or afraid.

For her it was graduate school. For you it may be a new job. Or you decision to move across the country, or start your own business. Whatever it is that made, or perhaps still makes you feel a bit paralyzed or afraid, let's take a look at the five things Diana mentioned which helped her "avoid insanity" while attending graduate school.

"I had to learn to learn to not become so emotionally involved in school."


Emotions are a wonderful, important and natural thing for a human being to experience. Unlike some success gurus of the current generation, I feel this includes anger, sadness, and fear. We mustn't punish ourselves for feeling emotions. Yet at the same time a large undertaking sometimes cannot proceed if we attach those understandable emotions to them and allow them to define the experience too much. Even when something is very important to us, there is a time and place for the emotion of said experience.

Consider emergency room doctors. Dedicated professionals who obvious have an intense passion for healing and medicine. But emotional investment in each patient, procedure and judgement call is impossible. Such people would be destroyed in short order. To best serve their passion, they must create a certain emotional distance on a day to day basis. Not become robots, but rather stage coach drivers. Holding the reigns and making sure the powerful horses go where they are supposed to go.

"I had to learn to create a balance between school and personal life."


I have learn from my previous conversations with Diana that she is an extrovert, and unless you are visiting Too XYZ for the very first time right now, you know that I am an introvert. Yet it is crucial for both types to maintain a personal life. Diana may have gone out on a Saturday night during grad school whereas I would probably visit a single family and talk for a few hours. Yet the point is we must remember that personal time. Maybe yours would entail swimming laps at the YMCA once a day, or reading a book all by yourself with your cats. Personal time is exactly that; personal. What it consists of is 100% up to you, but the key is you have to honor its value.

Some of the hardest people to get to know, some of the hardest to love are those who are always sacrificing personal time in pursuit of a degree, a job, a house. Or even a spouse. If we are investing so much in an endeavor that we become convinced there is no time to be had away from same, we have already become immersed too deeply. The old Chinese proverb says it is the space between the bars that holds the tiger in. In other words we can offer more to our mission when we remember there is more to our life other than the mission. We step away for a while and come back to it refreshed, and ready to tackle even more. The alternative is burning out, and that suits nobody.

"I had to stay calm."


"Keep calm and carry on" was a phrase on posters plastered all over London during World War II. An exquisite example of British simplicity and determination during some of the most trying time that nation has ever known, the phrase has recently made a bit of a pop-culture resurgence. Possibly it is nostalgia at work here, but I like to think that it is due to a slow but certain realization in our frenzied, uncertain, rapidly changing smart phone culture that remaining calm is more important than ever. Nothing can be accomplished from a state of panic. It may be part of our reptilian brain response to panic, but if we hope to get further than a reptile under attack would get, we must remember we are creatures of higher reasoning. We do this be keeping as calm as we can as often as possible.

You may not be facing the Luftwaffe, but it can feel like it when everything in your world feels like it is blowing up or falling apart around you. But if you keep calm and carry on you are far more likely to find either a solution to the problem, or an escape to another set of circumstances. Remaining calm reminds you that you are still alive, can still exert at least some control, and don't need to surrender to what appears at first to be chaos.

"I had to stay out of the drama."


I don't know if this one, or the previous admonition to stay calm is the most difficult for many of us. "Drama" in this context seems so seductive to so many people. I wonder why. Gossip, personal attacks, making a scene, going nuts. Squabbling. Backbiting and manipulation. Accusations. Even the best of us get sucked in to such a maelstrom at times. I theorize that being the center of such drama is a manifestation of a deep, latent desire for significance and attention we feel we lack. Participating in such drama from the outside I think is an indication that deep down we want to have influence on the world around us. I affect change, and not necessarily for the better.

Or maybe this is also a reptilian thing, and fighting and screaming is in our DNA. I only know this; that drama will happen. It too is a nature part of the human experience. Though some claim they "avoid drama" at all costs, I don't know how practical that is. Yet when we see drama we must be extra careful about becoming a part of it. It saps our energies, wastes our time, and, worse of all it has a bubble effect; when you find yourself in the midst of it your entire universe seems to be confined to the particulars of said drama. It becomes almost impossible to see, contemplate or engage in anything not connected with the drama. And if that happens, how do you move forward? How do you keep calm and carry on?

"I had to stay confident in my goals."


Forget trying to decide whether staying calm or staying out of the drama is more difficult. Staying confident in one's goals has both of them beat. I speak from personal experience.

There are so many expectations placed upon what we do with our time, our money, our talents. Even our love. These expectations come from convention, from society, from our churches, our friends, our families. Even from our television commercials. When we decide we have a goal, (or heaven forbid, a dream) that doesn't conform to any or all of these expectations, we hear about it right away. We here that it isn't traditional. That we need to settle. That the economy is too poor to start a business, or that we are getting too old to not be married. These sentiments can put us off of our personal vision for ourselves. Worse than that, it isolates us and makes us feel alone. All things are more difficult to accomplish when we feel we are alone.

Yet if we don't remain confident in our own goal in spite of all of that, nobody else can do it for us. Lack of focus on our own goals is a form of surrender to what other people determine about our lives. People who do no have the entire story, no matter how well they know us, or think they know the world. Goals change, yes, but that should only happen after deep introspection and revaluation based on what you truly want out of your life, as opposed to pressure from those who say it isn't feasible or goes against the status quo.

I hope I have demonstrated how Diana's approach to surviving graduate school is in reality a usable template for surviving most trials. What she did to keep her sanity in academia you and I can do to keep our sanity in our own lives.

Have you ever used any of these approaches? Would you add to this list? Tell me about it.

Introvert Risks

At a later date, I plan to respond to this notion that the very act of stepping out of your comfort zone is useful in its own right. This pervasive notion among the success gurus out there that you are not living your life, and have no hopes of success unless you are opting to somehow scare the shit out of yourself every day. (Hint: I think this approach is bogus.)

I don't however think it is bogus to say that sometimes we need to take some kind of risk. And that at times those risks will put us out of our comfort zone. Not for its own sake, but because the mission of any given point in our life requires it. I take no pleasure or excitement in being out of my comfort zone. That is why they call it a comfort zone after all. But if an important mission takes me there, so be it.

Yet you may not know I am there unless I tell you, though. That is because the praise and glory for taking risks often goes to the more outspoken risk takers. Those that instead of stepping outside their comfort zone, opt to take a flying leap out of it, over a cliff, and into a choppy ocean of uncertainty and danger, screaming, and blogging about the scariness of the entire affair during the entire fall. Extroverted risk takers.

Introverts have their own comfort zones, however. They take risks too. Perhaps less sexy risks. Perhaps their comfort zones are misunderstood so as to make it appear they never left them in the first place. Or when an introvert does something to expand their perspective it may be so similar to what their more gregarious counterparts do each day that no credit is even given for the risk taken.

But it is there, and it is time such things were acknowledged as well.

We introverts are often more sensitive to stimuli, both internal and external. We dislike chaos and noise. It tends to fry our circuitry. So if we do find ourselves shouting above a room full of excitable, screaming colleagues, you can bet it is because our belief in the idea is so strong we are willing to step into the disorienting fray of extroverted "brainstorming." That is outside of our comfort zone. And because most introverts don't process information in that manner, and certainly don't share it that way, we are taking a risk by attempting to do so, as it is not our game.

Introverts, contrary to popular misconceptions, are not de facto shy. Some of us are, and some of us are not, just like the extrovert population. (Yes, that surprising fact is also true.) Yet introducing ourselves to strangers in any medium is about as welcome to most introverts as would be climbing several flights of stairs with a bag of dry cement strapped to our backs.

But sometimes there is an idea. A solution. Something which we in our introverted alone time have conceived that must be shared with specific people we think will be able to help. But since we are idea based, people may find we jump right into the groundbreaking idea or observation. We take a risk every time we do so in a world that expects us to nuzzle up to strangers and begin the "Small Talk Tango". Introverts can ironically be seen as quite pushy once we decide something needs to be shared because we get right to the point, and that potential pushiness is a risk we take when we believe in something.

Our energy, our mental energy in particular, is a precious commodity to us. Not only that, it is a "combustible" mixture. It takes little for it to be exhausted, depending on the circumstances. We can be drained of it in short order when in public or around certain people for an extended period of time. If extroverts would stop and think then about how much of ourself introverts allow to be drained at time, they would see that sometimes the simple act of placing ourselves in a situation is risk taking and being outside of the all important "comfort zone."

Assessing what it would cost us to do something, and how we would go about doing it. Comparing what we would lose if we failed to what we would gain if we succeeded. And deciding that the potential loss is worth the potential gain. Taking action because being uncomfortable or even in pain is not as vital as what is at stake. This is risk taking. This is stepping outside of one's comfort zone.

Risk taking is not, as society has started to believe, running headlong into Interstate traffic, screaming how much you love the uncertainty of life the entire time.

Like much of what we introverts do, our risk taking is often so quiet and private, the world remains unaware of it. Which is why I point this out in my post today. So people will in fact realize a simple truth; introverts take risks every day.

If you are an introvert, what risks do you take, without trying to be other than what you are?

If Introverts Spoke Like Extroverts

As most people know for extroverts the act of thinking and the act of speaking are very much intertwined. The moment their brain conceives it is usually the moment the say it. And if both they (and you) are lucky, all of that talk leads to the bull's eye of the conversation or question. Eventually.

Introverts of course tend to not speak at all until their mind has processed the situation, stimuli, or point. They want that quiet moment or two before speaking, and when they do speak, their speech is often slower and more deliberate than the enthusiastic, exploratory chatter of the extrovert.

Introverts are very familiar with the exhausting experience of being engaged by an extrovert.

Perhaps it is best that introverts do not speak before they think, given the nature of what and how they think. But what if your average introvert worked like your average extrovert? What if just for a brief time introverts vocalized what they were thinking the moment they were thinking it? Here are some things I believe you would hear them say:   

-"Please stop talking so loudly. I'm the only one here and I am right in front of you."

- "You know, I just hate maintaining eye contact. I can hear you just fine if I don't so I'm just not going to do it."

- "Okay, I will keep looking at you while you speak, but it is very difficult for me to do that, so how about you stay in one place for a few minutes to make it easier on me? I would appreciate that."

- "Could I please answer your last five questions, before you either ask me another question, or begin to tell a story?"

-"I don't care."

- "That has zero relevance to what I just said. I totally respect the fact that you have the right to say whatever is on your mind. That's terrific. But your response has given absolutely no indication that you have heard anything that I just told you, and this irritates me."

- "You saw me sitting here in the corner with my eyes closed. That was a polite giveaway that I didn't want to converse with you, and yet you did so anyway. Please go away for a few minutes until I indicate I actually want to speak."

- "It's so rude that I'm usually no more than halfway through a point I am trying to make before you decide to change the subject to something you prefer. Or even worse, you decide you know what I was going to say, and say it for me. This is a conversation, not a monologue. Am I that boring, or are you just afraid of having to think for too long?"

- "I have not met any of the people in the story you are telling me. So I am not enjoying it."

- "When I am having fun, I am the first person to know it. Stop telling everyone else that I am not having any fun."

- "No, I don't have to get up to enjoy myself. I am enjoying myself sitting here, thank you."

- "Do we really need the television, the radio, and the internet on at the same time, while you are trying to talk to me?  How can I be the only one bothered by all this damn noise? Turn something off."

- "That was the clumsiest attempt at a segue into another topic I have ever witnessed. You just want an excuse to bring up something random, and we all know it."

- "I'd be happy to tell you what I think of that, if you agree to say nothing until I have completed my thoughts on same."

- "You do realize that nothing bad will happen if you just sit down for a minute and not do anything, don't you?"

- "I have no problem with you personally, but if you mention anything about coming out of my supposed shell again I am going to find a way to cram your fucking head into a shell."

- "Nothing personal, but I have no idea whatsoever how to respond to most of what you tell me. So I am just going to remain silent instead of talking out of my ass about something."

-"You would be wise not to confuse my quietness with detachment from my environment. I am probably more aware of what is happening in the room than you are."

-  "This conversation does not interest me at all. You are not saying anything that makes me think or laugh. To be perfectly frank I would like this conversation to end at this point. You and I can either start another one, or we can both go find something else to do. Either option is fine with me, but this is not working and I am tired of pretending it is."

- "Hello. I hate being here with all of these strangers, and I don't have the slightest desire nor the remotest intention to approach any of them. If anybody wants to meet me, I strongly prefer they come to me, and even then, I would be lying if I guaranteed that either one of us would enjoy the encounter."

And finally...

-"For the love of life, just shut the hell up!!!!!!!!!"

Not a pretty picture is it?

This is part satire, but largely fact based. I had some fun making this list, and I hope fellow introverts, as well as extroverts had fun reading it. But the truth of this matter is that as rude, aloof, strange and cold as introverts sometimes appear to extroverts, they may find us even less appealing if we spoke as often or as quickly as they do all of the time. If we can accept that yes, introversion can confuse and sadden extroverts, and that extroversion can just bug the piss out of introverts, everyone can better understand their individual friends of both types.

What did I miss? What else might an introvert say in an extroverted world if they didn't stop and think?