PERSPECTIVES
how to be quiet and reflective
for EXTROVERTS
SARAH POLLANS
28 | DESIGNED BY KEERTHI LAKSHMANAN
postscript editor
Hey! You! Yes, you! The one who has not stopped talking since 1937! I have something really important to tell you. Come, close, ‘cause it is really important. Shut up. Please. (I am being polite here). It’s not that hard. All you have to do is not let any air vibrate any of your vocal cords. And, hey, if all us introverts can do it on a day-to-day basis, I am sure you can too. That’s right. I (an introvert!) am going to tell you (an extrovert! But you knew that already!) how to properly be quiet. Preferably for an extended amount of time, but at this point, any amount of silence will suffice. I do have one question for you, though, before we start: Have you always been like this? Like even as a child? That must have been exhausting. Anyways, let’s begin. There is one really important aspect of being quiet, and that is, rather than talking, listening. You see, when you listen to someone else talk, you have to actually take in what they are saying, and this temporarily inhibits your ability to talk because you are using your brain. Something else you should try is actually thinking about your thoughts and what you want to say before really saying it out loud. This works because it also prevents you from talking for a while since you are again using your brain. I really like this one because it also
makes sure that what you say is actually worth saying and— Oh my gosh even in this guide on how to be quiet you literally still can not be quiet. How? How is this even possible? You probably could not go five minutes without talking even if your life depended on it, could you? I bet if no one stopped you, you would go on forever. It is actually kind of amazing how much you can talk. If it wasn’t so annoying I would be jealous of your stamina. I have to apologize: I feel like I’ve overcomplicated this for you. Let me dumb it down a bit. On the most basic level, the key to being quiet is to, simply, be quiet. There’s really no trick to it, that’s all us introverts do. Occasionally we might get bursts of extroversion here and there, but at the end of the day, we just are unequivocally, definitely, entirely, and even sometimes extensively, quiet. What I am trying to say through this jumble of mess, is that, on behalf of all introverts, just because we might not be talking, it doesn’t mean we have nothing to say. (I mean sometimes we have nothing to say but that’s like a whole other ordeal and makes things confusing so just forget about that). The point is, maybe give someone else a chance, maybe try offering the conversation to someone else, or maybe (just maybe) shut up.
