I am rarely (if ever) the loudest person in the room. I prefer small groups to large ones, and I only offer up my opinions in a classroom setting when I feel they are especially interesting and haven't already been stated by someone else. Needless to say, I don't speak just to hear myself talk. Recently, a professor told me via email that I was “soft spoken,” and she wanted to see me speak more confidently in her class. I've had this professor before, and I genuinely thought she knew me pretty well. But her email proved otherwise, and her comments sent me into a momentary rage. When did not dominating a class discussion become an indicator of low self-confidence?
I've been told I'm soft-spoken my entire life, and until the last few years, this was completely justifiable. As a child, I was embarrassingly shy. On Halloween, I could rarely make myself say “trick-or-treat” at strangers’ doors. That’s right—not even free candy was enough of an incentive for me to utter three simple words. And you know what else never provoked me to speak up? People telling me I needed to change. Shockingly, being told that I "needed more confidence" or "shouldn't be so shy" wasn't helpful at all.
I credit a majority of the self-confidence I have today to my involvement in high school theater. Freshman year, I took drama class and fell in love with acting. During my sophomore year, I auditioned for my first musical and participated in my first competitive acting tournament. My friendship circle immediately grew. I started talking vocal lessons. I was happier and constantly working toward an incredibly public goal: opening night.
Even at the high school level, theater can be incredibly taxing and time-consuming work. I was always on the move, from school to rehearsal to work every day of the week. My weekends were filled with acting tournaments, vocal lessons, and performances. Since theater was now such a central part of my life, it also became my most relied-on outlet for my struggles and negative emotions, not to mention the perfect solution for my low self-esteem and shyness. Suddenly, I wanted to be the one under the spotlight in a room full of people. I wanted the most lines, the hardest songs, the most intricate costumes. I wanted everyone to pay attention, to see that I could do this well.
That's why it can be so frustrating when someone who meets me now puts me in the "shy" box. Until you've seen six-year-old me on your doorstep in a witch's hat unable to utter a word and fast-forwarded twelve years to watch me transform into The Little Mermaid's Ursula, ten-pound tentacles tied around my waist and my face painted purple, hitting every note of "Poor Unfortunate Soul" in front of an auditorium full of people, maybe think twice about telling me to go out and get myself some confidence. You have no idea how far I've come.
I can't deny that in some settings, I still get nervous or stay silent, but even then my self-confidence doesn’t disappear. Theater gave me something bigger than the ability to state my opinions in a classroom without my entire body shaking with nerves—it taught me to be comfortable in my silences, even when they're not good enough for anyone else.
