The Quiet Power of Introverts in the Introvert-Extrovert Balance
Whenever there’s talk about scales, spectrums, or differences of any kind, you can almost guarantee there’s going to be people with extreme opinions on either side who can’t or don’t want to see eye to eye. That includes things like race, politics, disabilities, disorders, and even the introversion-extroversion scale.
While the complexity of the human mind is so vast that trying to boil it down to introvert and extrovert is oversimplifying it, I think that introverted and extroverted personalities are one important aspect of how human societies remain stable in our relationships with one another, so this article will explore the essential role that each of us play in what I’m calling the great introvert-extrovert balance.
Equilibrium Within Ourselves and With Others
Equilibrium is a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced.
If there’s one thing I remember from my high school biology class, it’s that every living being is constantly trying to keep itself in a state of stability, otherwise known as homeostasis, which is the tendency toward a relatively stable equilibrium within our body maintained by physiological processes.
Everything from the smallest microbe to the largest living organism needs to be in a state of homeostasis to survive.
That’s why we feel hunger and thirst, because those are our bodies’ ways of telling us that it needs energy and hydration to keep our organs working and get back to equilibrium.
That’s why we sweat, especially in this sweltering heat we’ve been experiencing this summer, because our body is trying to regulate it’s internal temperature - another example of equilibrium.
Even our brains try to keep us mentally stable. We feel mental anguish when something in our environment and/or within ourselves is not right, and often times in an effort to get our brain chemistry back to a state of stability, we find all kinds of different ways to cope - some more healthy than others - but the point is we’re trying to reach mental equilibrium.
Even on a much broader scope, if you think about how different organisms in an ecosystem are able to sustain life, there must be a settling point of equilibrium, otherwise the ecosystem cannot thrive.
In the Savanna grasslands, if there are too many primary consumers (the organisms that eat plants) and not enough tertiary consumers (the apex predators) to hunt the lower level consumers, it throws everything off; they’ll eat up all of the plants, and when there are no more plants, the producers die off, and the tertiary consumers have less prey to eat until the plants have a chance to flourish again, which will then create more resources to sustain the primary consumers so that the apex predators have more game to hunt, and so on and so forth - all in the name of reaching a state of balance, or equilibrium.
I could give so many more examples but hopefully you get the picture.
So how does equilibrium manifest in human societies?
Human societies are essentially made of individual people with varying personality types and other attributes, including introverts and extroverts; men and women; feminine and masculine energy; people who know when to be quiet and people who don’t know when it’s time to stop talking so much; people with high emotional intelligence and people with poor control and understanding of emotions; rich people and poor people; basically all of these varying degrees of the human condition.
And since the beginning of the first humans, we have been trying to reach our own version of equilibrium while having to grapple with these realities of human life.
Life is one long journey of trying to be at peace within yourself and with others, and that’s what I call equilibrium in society.
Why Balance Between Introverts and Extroverts is Necessary
My Main Thesis
On the societal level, I think that introverted and extroverted personalities are opposing forces that balance communities out because of our differing strengths and weaknesses, and on the individual level, I think it’s important that we don’t become so pigeonholed into our own natural introverted or extroverted tendencies that we don’t know how to connect and empathize with people who aren’t exactly like us.
Why is balance necessary for introverts and extroverts?
I think it’s possible for society to be so catered for more extroverted tendencies that there is no room for important individual activities like self-reflection and deep thought, which is important for things like changing and evolving as a person.
On the other hand, if society is more catered to introverted tendencies, there may be no room for the more expressive and communal behaviors that can pull us out of our own heads.
Sometimes, you need the introverted friend, or boss, or coworker, or neighbor that’s going to naturally encourage those important self-reflective and introspective behaviors — even in business, and sometimes you need the more extroverted friend, boss, coworker, or neighbor that’s going to keep you from going so deep within your own mind that you will drive yourself crazy.
It’s all a balancing act, and where one side falls short the other has the potential to pick up the slack.
How Introverts and Extroverts Can Get Along and Find Balance
Once we understand those differences in each other on the individual level, that understanding will organically spread throughout society, because communities are nothing but individual people who are trying to get along with each other the best they can.
Here’s how I think we can accomplish this in 3 steps:
Have a mutual understanding of each other’s personality differences.
By definition, an introvert is a quiet, reserved person who tends to be introspective and enjoys spending time alone. An extrovert is an unreserved person who enjoys and actively seeks out social interaction.
Just hearing those two definitions, you can see where the opposition comes into play, although it’s important to note that we are not all the same.
As a lifelong introvert myself who grew up with an extroverted, larger-than-life sister, I know how frustrating it can be when those opposing personalities clash: I never understood her innate need to speak to any and everyone who would listen, no matter where we went; and she never understood my natural tendency towards being quiet and my aversion to being in loud, exciting environments.
I was boring, she was the life of the party, and our differences were very obvious.
Once we can learn to accept each others differences, I think introverts and extroverts can be much better counterparts in a community.
Be confident in your own strengths and be able to acknowledge and work with your weaknesses.
Just as we’ve all got our own strengths when it comes to communication, relationship-building, information-processing, and more, we can also acknowledge when a situation requires a skill set that we just don’t have, and that’s ok!
I mentioned earlier that I have an extroverted older sister, and it’s amazing to watch how she can walk into a room full of people that she barely knows and immediately engage with ten of them all at once, as if she was just supposed to fit in there all along. They are usually laughing, telling stories, telling jokes, having fun, sometimes having disagreements (all in good fun of course), and just really connecting with one another.
I used to be really self conscious about the fact that I couldn’t do that, until I realized that my unique strength of connecting with people one-on-one allows me to create some very deep, genuine connections that I know for a fact wouldn’t be possible if I was trying to engage with multiple people all at once - because that’s simply not my strength.
And that’s ok.
We can’t all be good at everything, but we are all good at something that can contribute to the betterment of society.
Don’t be defined by a label like “introvert” or “extrovert”.
We all have our natural tendencies as introverts and extroverts, but sometimes the moment calls for you to take a step out of your comfort zone to make something great happen, whether that’s speaking up in a meeting at work, or hanging out with your friend group in an environment you don’t usually go to, or talking to a stranger in the grocery store.
I think it’s good to know when it’s time for you to speak up and engage with someone even though it might not be a large part of your personality, as well as when it’s time to take a step back from being the first one to speak and listen to what others have to say.
Again, it’s all about equilibrium.
What do you think? Am I onto something? Let me know by emailing me; I love connecting with readers like you!
