The Happy Introvert

Source: E. Wagele from The Happy Introvert

Do you know if you're an introvert? Would you be proud to know you were? As I say in my book, The Happy Introvert; A Wild and Crazy Guide to Your True Self, when I proudly announced to my mother that I was an introvert, she shot back angrily, "You are not! You are a nice girl!" Now that many decades have gone by, I can say with certainty that being an introvert has brought me many pleasures. I've never been bored except when other people don't know when to stop talking. I try to avoid situations where that can happen. I generally love people; after all, I spend much of my time studying them. I also like my own company and can find many ways to amuse myself. This is a big subject that I filled a whole book with, and there's not room to cover it here—but here are some questions you can ask yourself if you think you might be an introvert:

1. Do you usually prefer limiting your time with people to an hour or two?

2. Do people usually realize you're interesting only after they get to know you fairly well?

3. Are you critical of superficiality?

4. Do you tend to concentrate in depth when doing a project?

5. Is your style of speech relatively calm and quiet?

6. Are you more likely to engage in learning or improving your skills than in looking for outside stimulation?

7. Is your ability to remember people's names average to low?

8. In social situations, do you sometimes or often stand back and observe?

If you answered "yes" to most of these questions, it's likely you are an introvert. We all use both introversion and extraversion every single day, but one of these feels more easy and natural more of the time. After hearing people talk about introverts in a negative way I wanted to help clear up some of the misconceptions about this subject. I'm glad I did. The Happy Introvert helps those introverts who might think something is wrong with them, when really introversion is perfectly natural and necessary. It also teaches people how to relate better to the introverts in their lives.

• Read reviews of The Happy Introvert and the following articles: "Parenting Introverts," "A 5 on Music, The Enneagram, and Infinity," "How to Get Along with Introverts," and "Introverted Feeling Types."

• The Happy Introvert: Chapters on Relationships, Parenting and Teaching Children, Adolescents, Creativity, C. G. Jung, Neurology, and the Worksplace and the MBTI. Plus appendix on the movie, Napoleon Dynamite.