SELF-CONSCIOUSNESS AND TIMIDITY FOES TO SUCCESS
Timid, shy people are morbidly self-conscious; they think too much
about themselves. Their thoughts are always turned inward; they are
always analyzing, dissecting themselves, wondering how they appear and
what people think of them. If these people could only forget
themselves and think of others, they would be surprised to see what
freedom, ease, and grace they would gain; what success in life they
would achieve.
Timidity, shyness, and self-consciousness belong to the same family.
We usually find all where we find any one of these qualities, and they
are all enemies of peace of mind, happiness, and achievement. No one
has ever done a great thing while his mind was centered upon himself.
We must lose ourselves before we can find ourselves. Self analysis is
valuable only to learn our strength; fatal, if we dwell upon our
weaknesses.
Thousands of young people are held back from undertaking what they long
to do, and are kept from trying to make real their great life-dreams,
because they are afraid to jostle with the world. They shrink from
exposing their sore spots and sensitive points, which smart from the
lightest touch. Their super-sensitiveness makes cowards of them.
Over-sensitiveness, whether in man or woman, is really an exaggerated
form of self-consciousness. It is far removed from conceit or
self-esteem, yet it causes one's personality to overshadow everything
else. A sensitive person feels that, whatever he does, wherever he
goes, or whatever he says, he is the center of observation. He
imagines that people are criticizing his movements, making fun at his
expense, or analyzing his character, when they are probably not
thinking of him at all. He does not realize that other people are too
busy and too much interested in themselves and other things to devote
to him any of their time beyond what is absolutely necessary. When he
thinks they are aiming remarks at him, putting slights upon him, or
trying to hold him up to the ridicule of others, they may not be even
conscious of his presence.
Morbid sensitiveness requires heroic treatment. A sufferer who wishes
to overcome it must take himself in hand as determinedly as he would if
he wished to get control of a quick temper, or to rid himself of a
habit of lying, or stealing, or drinking, or any other defect which
prevented his being a whole man.
"What shall I do to get rid of it?" asks a victim. Think less of
yourself and more of others. Mingle freely with people. Become
interested in things outside of yourself. Do not brood over what is
said to you, or analyze every simple remark until you magnify it into
something of the greatest importance. Do not have such a low and
unjust estimate of people as to think they are bent on nothing but
hurting the feelings of others, and depreciating and making light of
them on every possible occasion. A man who appreciates himself at his
true value, and who gives his neighbors credit for being at least as
good as he is, cannot be a victim of over-sensitiveness.
One of the best schools for a sensitive boy is a large business house
in which he will be thrown among strangers who will not handle him with
gloves. In such an environment he will soon learn that everyone has
all he can do to attend to his own business. He will realize that he
must be a man and give and take with the others, or get out. He will
be ashamed to play "cry baby" every time he feels hurt, but will make
up his mind to grin and bear it. Working in competition with other
people, and seeing that exactly the same treatment is given to those
above him as to himself, takes the nonsense out of him. He begins to
see that the world is too busy to bother itself especially about him,
and that, even when people look at him, they are not usually thinking
of him.
A college course is of inestimable value to a boy or girl of
over-refined sensibilities. Oftentimes, when boys enter college as
freshmen, they are so touchy that their sense of honor is constantly
being hurt and their pride stung by the unconscious thrusts of
classmates and companions. But after they have been in college a term,
and have been knocked about and handled in a rough but good-humored
manner by youths of their own age, they realize that it would be the
most foolish thing in the world to betray resentment. If one shows
that he is hurt, he knows that he will be called the class booby, and
teased unmercifully, so he is simply forced to drop his foolish
sensitiveness.
Thousands of people are out of positions, and cannot keep places when
they get them, because of this weakness. Many a good business man has
been kept back, or even ruined, by his quickness to take offense, or to
resent a fancied slight. There is many a clergyman, well educated and
able, who is so sensitive that he can not keep a pastorate long. From
his distorted viewpoint some brother or sister in the church is always
hurting him, saying and thinking unkind things, or throwing out hints
and suggestions calculated to injure him in the eyes of the
congregation.
Many schoolteachers are great sufferers from over-sensitiveness.
Remarks of parents, or school committees, or little bits of gossip
which are reported to them make them feel as if people were sticking
pins in them, metaphorically speaking, all the time. Writers, authors,
and other people with artistic temperaments, are usually very
sensitive. I have in mind a very strong, vigorous editorial writer who
is so prone to take offense that he can not hold a position either on a
magazine or a daily paper. He is cut to the very quick by the
slightest criticism, and regards every suggestion for the improvement
of his work as a personal affront. He always carries about an injured
air, a feeling that he has been imposed upon, which greatly detracts
from an otherwise agreeable personality.
The great majority of people, no matter how rough in manner or bearing,
are kind-hearted, and would much rather help than hinder a fellowbeing,
but they have all they can do to attend to their own affairs, and have
no time to spend in minutely analyzing the nature and feeling of those
whom they meet in the course of their daily business. In the busy
world of affairs, it is give and take, touch and go, and those who
expect to get on must rid themselves of all morbid sensitiveness. If
they do not, they doom themselves to unhappiness and failure.
Self-consciousness is a foe to greatness in every line of endeavor. No
one ever does a really great thing until he feels that he is a part of
something greater than himself, until he surrenders to that greater
principle.
Some of our best writers never found themselves, never touched their
power, until they forgot their rules for construction, their grammar,
their rhetorical arrangement, by losing themselves in their subject.
Then they found their style.
It is when a writer is so completely carried away with his subject that
he cannot help writing, that he writes naturally. He shows what his
real style is.
No orator has ever electrified an audience while he was thinking of his
style or was conscious of his rhetoric, or trying to apply the
conventional rules of oratory. It is when the orator's soul is on fire
with his theme, and he forgets his audience, forgets everything but his
subject, that he really does a great thing.
No painter ever did a great masterpiece when trying to keep all the
rules of his profession, the laws of drawing, of perspective, the
science of color, in his mind. Everything must be swallowed up in his
zeal, fused in the fire of his genius,--then, and then only, can he
really create.
No singer ever captivated her audience until she forgot herself, until
she was lost in her song.
Could anything be more foolish and short-sighted than to allow a morbid
sensitiveness to interfere with one's advancement in life?
I know a young lady with a superb mind and a fine personality, capable
of filling a superior position, who has been kept in a very ordinary
situation for years simply because of her morbid sensitiveness.
She takes it for granted that if any criticism is made in the
department where she works, it is intended for her, and she "flies off
the handle" over every little remark that she can possibly twist into a
reflection upon herself.
The result is that she makes it so unpleasant for her employers that
they do not promote her. And she can not understand why she does not
get on faster.
No one wishes to employ anyone who is so sensitive that he is obliged
to be on his guard every moment lest he wound him or touch a sore spot.
It makes an employer very uncomfortable to feel that those about him
are carrying around an injured air a large part of the time, so that he
never quite knows whether they are in sympathy with him or not. If
anything has gone wrong in his business and he feels vexed, he knows
that he is liable to give offense to these people without ever
intending it.
A man wants to feel that his employees understand him, and that they
take into consideration the thousand and one little vexations and
happenings which are extremely trying, and that if he does not happen
to approach them with a smiling face, with consideration and
friendliness in his words or commands, they will not take offense.
They will think of his troubles, not their own, if they are wise: they
will forget self, and contribute their zeal to the greater good.