WISH I WAS HOME IN MY PAJAMAS

 



“The capacity to learn is a gift;

the ability to learn is a skill;

and, the willingness to learn is a choice.”

Brian Herbert

 

“I am like this only”…

Well, we all are ‘like this onlys’… There is a deep-rooted nature in all of us. You may be a born-extrovert, while I may be a born-introvert. So, this innate nature, I believe, is what makes us say - ‘I am like this only’…

Shy people, I know, will, always, remain shy. Their basic nature gets formed in their mothers’ wombs. So, when they realize what they are born with, it becomes easier for them to work around it…

I said, ‘to work around it’… I never said, ‘to do away with it.’ For, I firmly believe, that, while the social skills can be learnt and acquired, they can’t be replaced by completely uprooting our innate nature…

Susan Cain describes this inner plight of my type of shy souls like this: “Introverts may have (acquired) strong social skills and (learnt) to enjoy parties and business meetings; but, after a while, wish they were home in their pajamas.”

Trust me, that’s been my plight through all these years!




As a teenager, I was a miserably ‘self-conscious’ boy… I dreaded to mix with people. The thought of opening my mouth before others – strangers, group members, leave alone on stage – would make me terribly anxious, mentally crippled… The inner dialogues were overpowering: “Everybody is watching me… Everybody is judging me… Evaluating me… I am no good… I lack this, I lack that… and, even this: I am alone like this.”

Today, it is called ‘social anxiety’. Back then, it was called ‘inferiority complex’.

So, how did I manage to overcome this mental handicap?

My burning desire to become a fine teacher and a writer (like my idol – Prof. B. S. Raman) helped me. For that, the desire – the dream -  had to be stronger than the fear. Else, the fear would take the driver’s seat in life…

When I look at my journey, I can see this clearly: I have learnt and acquired the ‘required’ social skills… I have learnt to mix with strangers, smile at them first, shake hand first, say ‘Hello’ first and so on. But, if you ask me, if I have fully rooted out my shy nature – my discomfort and awkwardness in public – I say, “No, Sir.”

As Susan Cain says, after a while, I still experience that familiar feeling in my gut: ‘wish I was home in my pajamas’!

Whenever I see in my class young kids trying to live inside their shy cocoons – never giving a smile or saying a ‘Hello’ to another young soul for the entire academic year – I remember living in such a cocoon – that island of self-isolation – when I was of their age, once.






Agreed, everyone is born ‘Like this only’. However, to live with everyone else out there, we need to learn the basic survival skill of getting out of our pajamas…

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic’s: Pixabay 1. Noah Silliman  2. Kacper Synowicc

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