What kind of life in society is considered a success? In obituaries we see ‘was a great person/parent’ and all kinds of statements, but never do we see ‘This person was successful. In their time alive, they accomplished all the most important things in life.”
How are we to be successful anyway according to the mass society all around us? Upon examination it seems nearly impossible.
Even if one has a happy marriage and great relations with all their family members, maybe they have difficulty getting along with their boss at work because of all the time spent with loved ones instead of work.
Even if one does great at work and is the boss’s favorite, maybe they’re workaholics distant from their spouse and family. They’ve done well at the office because they put in those necessary extra hours.
One area of excellence excludes another in a competitive environment and yet extrovert ‘success’ requires excelling in every one of them.
The result is a society of illusion where everyone strives to appear to have the best of everything in their lives. One’s most publicly visible assets, a house and car are naturally the most important means of deception.
Though extroverts try to wake introverts up to ‘reality,’ they in fact live in a fairy tale land of their own making where every family has its own castle and magic carpet. The price of illusion is a lifetime of servitude to the image they wish to project. Never having known anything else, they are driven by vague notions of ‘success’ that they thrust on everyone around them in turn. They devote themselves entirely and without question, but do they ever really reach ‘success?’
Many introverts out of desperation go looking for ways to become more extroverted, but would ‘success’ in converting necessarily be salvation. Even if one got more resources and recognition by becoming extroverted would one have eliminated the ability to experience happiness from these gains? Would one end up lost in the maze of social comparisons, only happy or sad as others seem worse or better off?
To feel anything other than unfulfillment as an extrovert, one must hurry to have(or the appearance of having) a steady and loving marriage/relationship, a steady, highly paid, emotionally fulfilling job, a house, cars, an active social life, a fulfilling family life, a solid benefits and retirement package, above average, well-behaved children.
These criteria might even sound fairly ordinary but most people never come close to actually achieving them, even if they appear to do so. It’s difficult to maintain marriage, family, friends, children when working a job that actually pays and provides benefits. Even if one gets benefits, not many people can spend long enough in a single job to really benefit from them. Even if one actually has the qualifications and social contacts to get one of these salary jobs, it’s still not enough to really pay for a house and cars, just for the appearance of being able to pay for them. Even in the best of worlds where someone manages to somehow have all the bases covered, it’s an exhausting, stressful, demanding, noisy life to live. Even in this best case scenario, this is the bare minimum one must do in the mass Western society before one has permission to be even moderately happy or successful.
In the current social climate, it takes an introvert to step back and realize that real life is by nature messy and imperfect. That one can’t ‘have it all.’ That succeeding in one thing usually means sacrifice in another.
Once one starts asking questions, the whole idea of extrovert ‘success’ is sadly delusional. Happiness or sadness is all about expectations.
If one has unrealistic expectations, one can never really end up happy. Success ends up being a theoretical ideal to which one tries to mold themselves. Happiness is distant and intangible.
If one has realistic expectations, happiness is fairly easy to come by. Success lies in making one’s peace with an imperfect, chaotic, transitory life. Happiness is immediate and obtainable in our everyday lives.
The extrovert path to happiness and success is long, complicated, and comes with no guarantees.
The introverted path allows the possibility of happiness so long as one has clothes to wear, food to eat, and people to bond with.
It all goes back to a fundamental difference.
Loud things are grandiose, convoluted, and bloated
Subtle things are elegant, simple, and minimalistic
“The introverted path allows the possibility of happiness so long as one has clothes to wear, food to eat, and people to bond with.”
I agree with this completely. It gets on my nerves sometimes to live in a culture which treats me as a failure simply for being happy with what I have.
I have been called ‘unambitious’ before. I often wonder why people insist on busily working their lives away to get their own house, their own food, their own wheels. It all seems illogical when a few people who get along reasonably could live easy lives with tons of leisure time by sharing a place and a car and working less demanding jobs. Strangely, it seems to be extroverts who are focused on being ‘independent.’ Ironically, the people most prone to loneliness are forced by social expectations to go through great pains to make themselves isolated and lonely.
So many people are in this ‘OMG must save 1 million dollars for retirement’ mode. What does retirement matter if the last four decades of relative youth have been wasted? Only a fool could believe that anyone could spend decades as a chronic worker and then instantly turn around and be someone else. Our habits become who we are. Thus we constantly see workers who have compensated for lack of personal development across an entire lifetime with yet more work. When they reach retirement, they inevitably find themselves facing a yawning emptiness that sends them scrambling to keep busy. After decades, one’s profession really is one’s identity and retirement is not so much a well earned rest until death as it is an exercise in coping with a sudden and major life change.
Does it occur to anyone that the longer we wait to live life, the higher the probability it will be too late?
Unambitious, I watch hordes of people unhappily reaching the end of the exhausting professional slog and hope for something better in the long run.
well.. everyone would be happy if they can be recieved for being who they are..
It looks to me like you want to believe that extroverts are unhappy, while the evidence is to the contrary. Maybe you guys need this and we should just leave you too it.
At one time I believed extroverts to be the happy and successful ones. It’s what we are told is the case. Extroverts themselves put on a good show. Frequently, however, it is a show because unhappiness, doubts, and insecurity are always unfashionable.
I’ve noticed over the years that extroverts tend to be much more demanding of life and much harder to please. They have to be living in the ‘fast lane’ to stay stimulated. They have to maintain ‘upward mobility’ to feel like they’re ‘going somewhere in life.’ They have to outcompete others so they do not feel like ‘losers.’ Their self image, their self worth, their sense of purpose and fulfillment is all tied to what others think and expect. If happy, they do not own their own happiness. It belongs to everyone but themselves and as such it can evaporate without a moment’s warning.
Like addicts, nothing they get is enough. The higher the pleasures they enjoy, they harder it becomes to get the next high. They lack the spiritual moderation required to find a stable place in life.
Time after time, I’ve seen extroverts with lives and privileges I can’t even imagine no happier than they were before they fought their way up the ladder. Once I was envious of such people. I’ve learned better in years since.
I guess you are supposing that I’ve gone out of my way to delude myself to make life easier on me.
I’m supposing the easy approach to the situation would be to conclude that all the extroverts are indeed happy, dazzling, sparkling celebrities. After all, this is the popular, accepted view. It’s easy to believe what everyone else already believes. It would provide me role models to emulate, goals, and I wouldn’t have to waste my time writing a blog or fussing about the ennui of modern existence.
Maybe I got tired of having a one person pity party and decided to turn around and attack the happy extroverts as an outlet for my frustration.
Or maybe I perceived the system isn’t all its said to be, that the promises of extroverted success are empty. Maybe I saw the whole society around me and how people lived their lives chasing a dream of happiness instead of living it. Maybe having been a misfit, I began to realize that I was finding happiness in my life without doing any of the things I was supposed to do, without having all the things I was supposed to have.
It almost seems like it would be close to impossible to be happy as an extroverted adult in the western world. Most adults are very isolated (loss of energy source for extroverts), have to work constantly with other ambitious people (extroverts compete fiercely in the workplace and often over trivial things), and have to make sure they stack up against the competition in their grand game of social collection.
All of this means that many extroverted adults work non-stop and if they slip just a little (very easy to do in our society) they will lose a significant source of their self-esteem and happiness. Thus, they are NEVER in complete control of their happiness and well being. Loss of control over those two concepts are frequently cited as a cause of depression.
It is very easy to be happy as an extroverted kid or teenager, especially if you are a woman that is not hideous. Life is an endless party! What more could be better?
But once the transition to full blown adulthood completes, the extrovert is entrenched in a constant struggle for status and a striving for ideals and values that may not be in line with their own.
I don’t think life is exactly an endless party for extroverts even before adulthood. After all, we were pushed aside in the secondary school social scene because of its brutally competitive nature and obsession on status for status’ sake.
I suppose it’s nice to be popular at the parties, president of a club, valedictorian, varsity athlete, and prom royalty all in one. But just as in adult society it takes absolute dedication and cutthroat competition to make it to the top.
As in adult society: if you’re not at the top then someone is above you. There’s that time honored nugget of wisdom that my Dad learned in the military: “Shit rolls downhill.”
It is a popular thought that extroverts are happier. If only people really got that introverts are very social and compassionate people. They are just not addicted to stimulus. Introverts have an inner world that connects them more genuinely to everyone without the pretense.
JNET