Shy is not Shine

Recently I have worried about shyness. In fact, I am shy. In some case, shyness is a good thing, especially in terms of a good listener. On other hand, shyness has a bad aspect. Maybe many people would be taught a tip by parents. I quote it from The Fine Art of Small Talk:

• Good things come to those who wait.
• Silence is golden.
• Wait to be properly introduced.
• Don't talk to strangers.

These might be useful for us when we were children. But, as the author pointed out, now, as adults, these lesson are not useful for us, and sometimes good things come to those who wait and waiting to be properly introduced are not good things for us. The Upside of Irrationality gives us a good example for this. A professor who was smart, funny and more or less good-looking couldn't find his partner. It was because he was not outgoing and concentrated on working, even though he had an opportunity to meet women like dinner parties. (However, according to the book, he did meet his mate.)

Therefore, we often lose a good opportunity due to be shy and introvert. Hey, shyness is not golden!

The following opinion is based on just my case, but I suspect many people have the same trouble as me.

Now I study abroad in the U.S.. However, my English skills except reading skills haven't improved so much. One of the reasons for that is that I am shy. Generally speaking, to master a language, we need to have a lot of talking to the others. Of course, reading and writing help us mastering a language, but human being actually had a speaking word before making characters. In addition, as a baby, we acquired a lot of words by listening to our mother and father's talks or having a conversation to them. In other words, what I want to say is talking is important for us to improve English skills, and also other languages. So, I guess socialized people master a language more quickly than shy people.

Two days ago, I had a discussion socializing and shyness with my host mom. She thought socializing is one of the skills. I agree with the idea. And we also talked about why shy parents' children sometimes become shy. In fact, my parents are both shy. Her idea about why shy takes over was that parents who are not socializing can't teach their children how to be socializing because they have no idea. I think so, of course, though shy is also a part of personality. The above-mentoned author, Debra Fine, overcame her shyness, according to The Fine Art of Small Talk. So, I try to learn socializing!