From the moment we're born, we are labelled as one thing or another. Words to describe how you look, how you act, how you feel. Later on in life, we become our labels. We start to use these mere adjective to define ourselves and everything we do. Suddenly, everything that we are and everything that we aim to be is just a word on one of two sides of the spectrum. It becomes difficult to find a balance. You're either good or bad. You're either happy or sad. You're either an introvert or extrovert.
And when you can't find a word for that in between emotion or action, you find yourself lost. You don't know how to describe it simply because you do not know a word for it. It's either this or that and it starts to bother you when you can't find a word for it. You mull over books you've read, movies you've seen, people you've talked to-- anything that might hint at the word you're looking for. You wrack your brain inside and out, trying to find a word to satisfy the need of knowing what that word is.
This, in relation to my article this week, precisely knocks out two birds in one stone. The first bird is my personality. When someone asks me what my personality is, I am at a loss for words. How am I supposed to tell you who I am when I'm in between every word? I am an introvert but also an extrovert. I am loud but so quiet at the same time. I am every word in the dictionary yet nothing no word in the world can describe who I really am.
The second bird is the thought process of an introvert's extroverted mind. I have a habit of taking something very simple and making it extremely complicated. I take an idea or a concept and I nitpick at it until I am dissatisfied with its end result. I take a thought and create a whole scenario in my head until reality doesn't even exist in my mind anymore; I'm in a different world. I expect everything and anything from someone and fail to realize every expectation I held was in my head yet I acted like I imposed them on that individual. That's the problem.
If you're an introvert with an extroverted mind, you feel trapped. You don't have the same means to act upon your thoughts as someone who is outgoing yet you feel and receive these thoughts and emotions all the same. In other words, you are confined within the walls of your mind no matter how hard you try to let it out. Sometimes you don't know how to let it out, and sometimes you find it too hard to let it out because not letting it out is the only way you're used to living.
And when you realize this, suddenly, this thought process becomes a hundred times more complicated. You over think every problem in your life, you over think every solution to that problem. You dramatize the consequences and the outcomes because in reality, you would be too scared to see it actually happen in front of your eyes. For an introvert (or at least, most introverts), feeling safe in your head is the best place to be. Safe from risk, safe from mistakes, safe from failing.
A few days ago, I realized how chaotic my mind had become. Maybe it was because I came to the conclusion that my over thinking had gotten me into trouble or that I was an introvert with a highly unconstrained extroverted mind. Maybe it was because I couldn't find a word that was in between these two personalities or a word that encompassed how I was feeling; maybe it was the perpetual thought process that gave me headaches because I couldn't find an answer to a question I didn't even know I asked. Either way, I realized I have a battle going on in my head - one that wants to keep me safe and the other that wants to risk it all.
Throughout all of this, the hardest part still continues to be which part do I listen to. Do I attempt to reason with my introvertedness or my extrovertedness? Do I listen to both or ignore one of them? Do I let one of them win over the other?
Yet you can't finish a race when you're still standing at the starting line, and that's precisely where I am.
