Thursday, January 22, 2015
America: The easily swayed country
Quiet has been an enlightening read. From the very beginning the author caught my attention; Most likely because a lot of what the author was saying I felt was so relevant to me and who I am. I was blown away by the truth in America's change over time where we went from "culture of character" to "culture of personality." We went from admiring simple traits of people like loyalty, honesty, and integrity to an era we are fully in now where we admire charm, charisma, ability to sell an audience with your words, and leadership. All of the traits I have listed are traits I would want to have but to have people feeling inadequate because they may not possess all these traits is sad, it shows where our society is. We as a society can be very judgmental which causes most of us to be fearful of being inadequate in the eyes of our peers. I found myself relating to the introvert personality type. I am a thinker, I keep things in my head and I listen more often than I speak and when I do speak it is softly and it's not as though I try to be soft spoken that's just how I have always been, I prefer small groups over large crowds of people. In high school I always kept my friend group rather small, I was an athlete so I had plenty of friends but I was only really close to a handful of people. I enjoyed my school work and I enjoyed time with my family and close friends on the weekends I certainly wasn't in the popular crowd. But having said that, I am in college now and I am a member of a social sorority. I like being around people, I like meeting new people and talking a lot but I also have times where I am completely fine with having "me" time. You can't judge a book by it's cover. You can be outgoing and have lots of friends and enjoy social settings while still being who you truly are. It's important to know who you are and not let the mold of the perfect person with the perfect personality make you feel any less about yourself.
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I was feeling a bit disgusted when I read the part of the book about the Tony Robbins "state of mind". What a rip off and still people pay to attend such nonsense Maybe I'm in the wrong profession. I too agree that it is sad we as a culture discount traits of honesty, loyalty and integrity. I believe people like you (a thinker) can contribute a great deal in any given situation. Sometimes I wish I thought a bit more before I acted.I often feel regret that I did or said something and later found out the outcome could have been totally different if I had given it a bit more thought!
ReplyDeleteYou point out strong points that really show how judgmental Americans can really be. I feel as you should never judge a book by its cover. We all know that it never happens that way and what its cover looks like is how it gets treated. You see a person walking down the street who is a little over weight. Your first reaction is, well that person needs to stop eating and hit the gym. When the truth is that the person has a medical condition that prevents them from losing weight. You hurt that person's feelings over something that they have little to no control over. I know this may be way off point, but it’s a big pet peeve of mine. Growing up I had a hard time in school when it came to learning. People started judging me based on my cover. When the truth was found out later down the road that I had dyslexia all the damage was done. I got the extra teaching I needed and now hold a three six GPA and Mansfield. Never judge unless you want to be judged.
ReplyDeleteI think that most people especially in college feel pressure to be an extrovert when they aren't, it is good to challenged yourself and grow as a person. But, when it mentions in the book about being a closet introvert it just seems that businesses and people expect us to put up a facade and be someone we aren't sometimes.
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