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We grow up being told about what we are. During childhood, we may be told how noisy we are or how reserved we are. During teenage years, we have heard other people saying how friendly we are or how introvert we are. Through the years, these comments, suggestions and opinions about who others think we are accumulate. We filter these things out until ultimately, we create our self-image, the image that other people have helped to design. We then go on with our lives bringing this image with us wherever we go.

Then comes a time in your life that this self-image we are projecting becomes the very thing that cages us from our potentials. I didn’t realized this until recently.

I grew up through my teenage years and into my adulthood thinking that I am an introvert. True to my thinking, I became one. I don’t go to parties unless I need to. I sometimes dish out invitations to what could have been a nice and fun celebration. Soon, being with a crowed stresses me out. I always looked for excuses not to be there.

When I entered the professional life, that self-image of mine did a huge part in my decision making. I declined offers to jobs that deal mostly with people. I often say “that job is inviting but I’m not that good with people.” Because i say so, then i became so.

Just this morning, I received a text message from a local company to be in their office by 2pm for a job interview. I was delighted to have such opportunity but knowing that the position available is that of a project coordinator, I was having the idea in mind how difficult the job would be for an introvert like me (self-image doing its thing again). I knew that the job would entail me to deal with clients and handle the team doing the projects. I arrived and we went on with the usual interview process. The bottom line, the job didn’t fit me as I always had excuses locking me up in my mind.

Some time during the interview, he asked me if I have any personal messaging account and I answered that I only have one and its with Yahoo Messenger. At the back of my mind, I was asking myself why should I have more than one private messaging account. Thinking that having more than one account for personal messaging is absurd, I was again caging my self to such belief. “Why not?” I ask my self now. “It’s just an account anyway.”

I would like to give credits to the book Follow Your Heart by Andrew Matthews. I am reading it now and I highly recommend it. Just start reading and you’ll know why its a best seller.

The book was subtitled Finding Purpose in Your Life and Work. Andrew mentioned something in it that really struck me. He said “Whoever you are, you aren’t STUCK - you are a human being, not a tree!” He was absolutely right for the situation I was in. I was stuck in something that bore me all because I decided to disconnect with people, for the simple reason that I believe I am an introvert. I was depriving my self of excitement, of discoveries and of learnings that I could never experience when I lock my self out from everybody else.

If there is one lesson I learned today, here it goes: I am a dynamic person very much capable of change and adaptation. My self-image should not be one that’s as stiff as a metal rod, unbending to the changes of time.

Those who adopt, survive. Those who don’t either left frozen in the ice age, left alone in an island during the continental drift or get eaten by predators who have changed well enough to run faster than you.