on shyness

February 26, 2004

my teacher on monday said something about shyness that really got me thinking. according to him, he believes shyness to be a choice. he thinks shyness in a person is a result of an habitual action, serving some kind of specific purpose at one point or another in their life. and so, one who is continually shy, continues to make a choice about being shy since they are still clinging to that habitual action. he also made a differentiation of introversion and extroversion. he believes an introvert is one who simply prefers to look inside instead of to others. what shocked me was that he considered himself introverted, when in my definition, he's extroverted.

in any case, when i talked to him about my shyness issue, he told me it's something that i need to explore and really investigate. and you know what? initially, a part of me wanted to throw the whole idea out the window because i thought it was ludicrous to me. who would make a choice to be shy? why would anyone want to do that? do you think shy people like being shy? i certainly don't. i wish i could i be more outgoing sometimes, but i can't. i'm just not wired that way. all these excuses rose up in me, and before i was about to barrage him with all of these points, i stopped to think about it.

as i reflect on my life, i realize that i've used shyness as an excuse for a lot of things.

"it's hard for me to talk to people because i'm shy"

"oh i can't do that. i'm shy"

"put me in an environment with people i don't know, and i won't say a word, cuz i'm shy"

"i'm shy, i'm shy, i'm shy"

it's a resounding phrase that doesn't seem to leave my head. and while i don't complete agree with his stance on shyness, i don't totally disagree with it either. i think shyness has affected me in more ways than i've imagined, and that it runs deeper than i know. voice and speech (the class i'm taking) is all about freeing your voice and making choices about your voice, so that you can communicate with others more effectively. he's noticed that i tend to trail off on the end of my sentences, as if i'm apologizing every time i say something. he's noticed that in another guy in the class that's also shy, a guy that i can totally relate with.

something i've realized over the past while is that i really value what others think of me, and from that, the words i say and the things i do are affected by that. i'll refrain from doing something if someone would think ill of me afterwards. i refrain from saying things if it would make someone think less of me. and so what i've really done, is suppress things that i want to do or say. i'm not willing to take risks if it'll make a fool of me. i'm afraid to confront people because i don't want to 'offend them'. in acting class, i'm almost always unwilling to improv, because i don't know what i'm doing and i'm worried how people will perceive me. i'll refrain from taking risks and venturing out into uncharted territory because i'm caught up with my own self-image.

the root of all this is the root that exists in every human being on planet earth. that's the need to be loved. and so, this need of ours, dictates the things we do and say, because we're afraid that people won't love us for who we are. so we hide, we mask, we present only the sides of us to the world that we want seen. isn't it wonderful that God looks beyond all of that and loves us just the way we are? no matter what we've done, thought or said, God's love supercedes all of that. and all He wants us to do is to a) allow Him to love us like that and b) to love Him in return. my need and desire to be accepted and loved by others needs to be found in God, because i'm looking in the wrong places for it. i'm not saying there's anything wrong with allow ourselves to be accepted and loved by others, because there's place for that. but if we're going to others first, then we're in trouble. in this life, all we need is God. He is all-satisfying of every desire and need we have. and i need to wrap my heart around that. we need to wrap our hearts around that.

when i think about my earlier childhood years, i don't think i was really that shy. i interacted with a lot of people in elementary school and never recall using shyness as an excuse for anything. so something changed from them until now. something radically changed. and you know what, i think it has something to do with my faith in Christ. as Christians, we are to walk in a way that reflects Christ (see philippians 1:27), and so we must be careful of the things we say or do. if i reacted to everything the way i wanted to, or said everything i thought, believe me, there would be a lot people that would be offended. and there would be a lot of people who wouldn't like me. but at the same time, as a Christian, i'm not supposed to be a push-over either or to simply be "mr. nice guy".

Jesus wasn't a "nice guy". he was a wild man. the things he did were not tame. in mark 11, when Jesus went into the temple and saw that it was being used for selling merchandise, He went nuts. He pushed over tables and wouldn't allow anyone to pass through the temple courts who was carrying merchandise. that isn't the act of a "nice guy". i think i've held onto this mentality of being a "nice guy" for way too long, and have used as an excuse to be shy, to not speak up and avoid issues. i've somehow mixed up my self-image to be found in others, rather than in God. add all of these factors together, and you have me, shy leo.

i think God's trying to radically shift my paradigm. i've been holding the wrong paradigm for years and it's time for it to change. it's time that i stepped out in the life that God's called me to, and to not be afraid of risking it all for Him, not caring of what people think of me, because at the end of the day, it shouldn't ever be about me, but all about Him.

"for God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline." (2 timothy 1:7 [NIV])

Posted by Leo Chan at February 26, 2004 9:19 AM