Not wired that way

I had a wonderful conversation with someone last week.

After I confessed that I was an introvert at a meeting, someone came up to me and gave me a pat on the back. She told me I did a good job for being an introvert.

I'll take whatever compliment I can get.

I told her that it's not a fear or dislike of public speaking that I have. I just plain don't like being around or in front of people on a regular basis and speaking at the same time.

She told me she understood. Your body just isn't wired that way, she told me.

See? Some people get it. 

I'm capable of speaking in front of a crowd, I told her, but it's not something that I like. (Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should do it. Jumping off a cliff comes to mind. I kept that thought to myself, but it did go through my head.)

Let me start the story from the beginning. 

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I went to a meeting last week out of town for my job. We were split up into groups, given an assignment, and one person in each group got to present their assignment the next day to the entire group.

My group included someone who couldn't make the meeting, someone who barely had a voice, and two other people who were pretty new to the company.

I immediately knew that I would be the one presenting in my group. I spent about five minutes internally dreading it, but then I put my adult pants on and decided to accept it. 

At dinner that night, someone asked me if I had an introduction planned. 

Oh, don't worry, I told them. I know exactly what to say.

The next day, a few minutes after 8 a.m., I volunteered to present first. 

Here's my line of thinking: If I don't go first, I'm not going to listen to any of the other presentations. I'm going to sit there silently and worry about my own presentation.

The anticipation is always the worst part of anxiety. (In somewhat related news, I had a dental appointment this week. I had nightmares about it for a week. How many cavities do I have? ZERO. Anxiety is stupid.)

So, I might as well go first and get it over with. I took my laptop to the podium and looked at the group of faces looking at me.

My introduction pointed out that I was the biggest introvert in the room and I was the one in my group presenting.

Everyone laughed.

I looked around the room, and I lightened up a little.

And then they laughed some more.

It turned out fine. 

It wasn't so bad after all. Life's a lot more fun when you can laugh at yourself and get through it. 

I also spoke briefly in front of a different crowd that night at another event. 

I had another thought: Is God picking on me?

I went to church this weekend, just to get on His good side. 

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That's kind of the story of my life. It usually ends up being okay in the end.