Comment by Lutger
20 days ago
I don't know if it is clear headed. It disregards scientific consensus on introversion / extraversion being a real thing, and it also speaks against the actual experience of many people. Furthermore, you conflate introverts with hermits.
A lot of introverts actually like contact with other people. They often prefer smaller groups and a certain connection, they are more picky. And need some time alone afterwards.
But that doesn't mean they are hermits.
I used to think I like parties. That I have to like it. That something was wrong with me for not liking it. Now I know it is ok to not have fun at a party, and prefer a walk with a good friend or my wife. I am much happier this way.
As someone who had many years of depression, I know social isolation too. And it is just not the same.
That said, I admit it can at the same thing also be true that people cop out of a healthy way to stretch their boundaries or even expend just a little effort by mistakenly labeling themselves as introvert. Such misuse of the label doesn't mean it doesn't refer to a real thing and a real experience.
I think ADHD is a good parallel. I absolutely have it, I’m diagnosed and have had symptoms since childhood.
But even so, I often realise I self-justify not doing something and attribute it to my ADHD, excessively. It becomes a clutch, and I gravitate away from the willpower I do have.
That reminds me, it’s time to reach out to some friends and make weekend plans, even if I’d prefer having a quiet one. I’ve had too many recently :)
Also have ADHD, and yeah, I've realized that it's even easier to fall into a fixed-mindset trap if you actually have a good justification for it.
My current mantra is "I get to decide who I am." Identity is incredibly mutable, but we tend to get stuck with baked in early assumptions. It's so easy to think "I'm not good at this" and sort of silently translate that to "I could never be good at this," when not being good at a thing is everybody's natural state.
Of course, most skills are going to be easier for some people to pick up and harder for others, but that's rarely the determining factor; more often it's who's put in the time and effort.
It's so easy to forget that so many of these things are skills, and to assume that people that are good at them just got lucky, which is not only counterproductive to oneself, it's kind of disrespectful towards the others who worked so hard to get good at them.