Guitars, brains and music

The past has been visiting lately. It ain't trippy or haunting – nothing like that. Just a mark of advancing age! When I recently turned 30, I took stock of some of my “talents” and realised with a sinking heart that I'd let one in particular go. As a child, I was a pretty good pianist and violinist without having to dedicate hours of practice in order to do pretty well in examinations and competitions. (I remember my daily practise limit was about half an hour to my mother's consternation). What's more, I was one of the lucky few to be in possession of a special something known as Absolute Pitch whereby I could name any note played to me on the piano. Given this happy accident of biology and upbringing, I probably had the potential to become something of a performer had I not first been knocked off my perch by a turbulent adolescence and chronic fear of my piano teacher (I think she's still alive). 

You might recall that the turn of my fourth decade resulted in a discombobulating need to go searching for my soul, which had gone wandering again after I thought I had it nailed. For the first time in my life I felt that the aphorism “use it or lose it” actually meant something. Since life purpose was what I was looking for, the quickest way to get unstuck was by looking at what I had – in my brain, my body – and try to make something of it rather than reaching for something that was, well, as yet out of reach. So through this came the urge to reclaim the musical bit of myself. 

I'd always wanted to learn the classical and Spanish guitar. With its singular capacity to produce the lulling Balearic sounds of my endless beachside fantasies, the classical guitar is the only instrument that succeeds in calming me right down. So as a birthday present to myself, I bought a cheap nylon string guitar off eBay and Googled the teacher nearest to where I live. As luck would have it, the teacher I decided was “the one” had just broken his thumb (!) and was out of action for 6 weeks. Yet something told me I should wait for him to recover rather than go hunting elsewhere. So I waited. And while I waited I did what probably most people who want to learn an instrument do these days. I YouTubed some video tutorials and then found some free TABS on the internet to start picking at.

Having barely touched an instrument for a decade, I was initially filled with trepidation. I questioned whether I could still claim to be musical, not to mention whether I still had Absolute Pitch. I wondered how easily I would take to the guitar, having experienced a discouraging false start at age 16 when I couldn't play the F chord on Nirvana's “Smells Like Teen Spirit” because my hands were too small. Fortunately, I got confirmation that I hadn't completely “lost it” before I'd even begun lessons: I'd taught myself a ABSRM Grade 4 syllabus piece without knowing it. My hands are also a lot stronger if not wider in reach than when I was 16 (all that yoga!)

Private lessons have now been going for three months and have given me further courage that I'm not too old to pick up an instrument. Had I no other ambition, I would probably heed my teacher's advice and go on to do grades and examinations. But it seems old habits really do die hard. I still only practise 30 minutes a day – max – and not every day at that.

All of this is really a preamble for another past event that has come into the present. When I moved to England in 2008, the first book I bought on these shores was Daniel Levitin's “This Is Your Brain On Music”. The purchase was probably a hangover from my student days studying neuroscience at university. But I only read a third of the book at the time.

When M and I recently moved home, in the midst of sorting out all our Stuff!, I told myself that instead of filling up our new bookshelf with new purchases, I should try and get through the books we already own but haven't read. “This Is Your Brain On Music” was one of them. It seemed like the perfect read for the moment in any case as not only was I now learning an instrument, I've also been contemplating doing a Masters in Neuroscience. And as someone who is undergoing a slow career transition, I found a kindred spirit of sorts in Daniel Levitin. 

Levitin would know a thing or two about career moves. He went from being a university drop-out and guitarist in several bands to becoming a record producer, working with some of the biggest names in rock history, to then geek it out as a neuroscientist and cognitive scientist specialising in music cognition, working with some of the biggest names in brain science. Whoa! “This Is Your Brain On Music” pretty much sums up all the research on the subject until 2006 when it was first published.

You're not a true music geek unless you like books like this. With passion bursting from the page, Levitin does a marvellous job at entertaining us on what can be a pretty abstruse subject – he canvasses music theory, for instance – while furnishing the reader with an introduction to the general discoveries and principles of neuroscience and brain cognition along the way. 

Levitin begins by exploring what music actually is – there's doubtless much more to it than simply being “organised sound” - to then dissecting how we perceive music and what goes on in the brain when that happens. Auditory perception, he explains, is actually the product of our brains working to construct its own version of reality when stimulated (via the eardrum) by certain disturbances of air molecules. In other words, music, let alone sound, only exists if there are perceivers like ourselves. This is analogous to the reality of colours, which are also just the perceptual products of our brains transducing frequencies on the visible spectrum into patterns of neural firing. Then out of the raw material of the audio waves, the brain is somehow able to parse and compute all the various components of music including pitch, timbre, rhythm, meter and so on – in parallel (known as “parallel processing” as opposed to “serial processing” as a computer might). This kind of mental processing touches on one of the most fascinating things about auditory perception. How can we perceive and identify the multidimensional qualities of, say, Led Zeppelin's “Stairway to Heaven” just from vibrating air molecules hitting the eardrum? 

In fact, how can we distinguish different sounds at all? 

As Levitin writes (p.102): “Let's consider a typical auditory scene, a person sitting in her living room reading a book. In this environment, let's suppose that there are six sources of sound that she can readily identify: the whooshing noise of the central heating... the hum of a refrigerator in the kitchen, traffic outside... and a recording of Debussy preludes.”

From the eardrum's and brain's point of view, it's like throwing Ping-Pong balls against a pillowcase which is held taught across the opening of a bucket. The pillowcase is the ear drum and the ping pong balls are the moving air molecules. The brain's ability to discern the different kinds of “hits” from the balls is part of its genius. It turns out that the brain does a lot more to complete an aural picture than just using the information its given by moving air molecules.

Other fascinating topics Levitin explores include how and why music – as opposed to just random sounds – can evoke such great emotions in us all; what makes a song groove and our bodies want to dance; and how music memories (and memories in general) are stored in patterns of neural activation. After reading this, you'll no doubt have a better understanding of what your brain is doing when it gets a so-called “ear worm” (bits of musical refrains that get stuck in one's head)!

Levitin also explores why we have music at all from an evolutionary perspective. Does music accord our species with specific survival value or is it simply a “spandrel”, a byproduct of another adaptation such as our facility for language? If it is itself an adaptation, is music like a peacock's feathers, advertising an animal's health and fitness and therefore underlying genetic quality? For instance, is it any accident that rock stars like Mick Jagger and Jimi Hendrix tend to enjoy more sexual conquests than your average non-musician Joe? Or did music evolve as a form of social glue, bringing people together, and so therefore conferring survival value at the group level?

The most interesting section of the book for me is when Levitin talks about musical expertise. He makes the distinction between expertise as a performer, as a composer and as a listener. You can be a brilliant composer without being very good at playing instruments. Irving Berlin, generally regarded as one of the 20th century's greatest composers, was not a good instrumentalist in the technical sense; while Joni Mitchell, one of popular music's most innovative songwriters, never learned how to read music – and to her advantage. 

Most of the rest of us who are neither good musicians nor good composers but who were exposed to music from a young age (perhaps even in the womb) have nevertheless grown up to be expert music listeners. We can tell that a violin sounds different (or has a different timbre) from a trumpet etc; we know the kind of music that we like and dislike; we can generally discern when a wrong note is played or sung especially if the melody or song in question is a familiar one; and we are able to store and recall a vast number of music memories. 

But only a small subsection of the population actually become expert performers and accomplished composers. Why? The question inevitably dredges up the age-old nature versus nurture debate. Are some people simply genetically predisposed to be good musicians? It's known, for instance, that music often runs in families. I know my maternal grandmother studied at a music academy while all her children were made to learn the piano. But this is by no means sufficient evidence to suggest my family on the maternal side possesses a “music gene”. The fact that my family had the opportunity – i.e. nurture – to learn to play music counts for a lot as well. 

Even if musical ability in the performance sense has a genetic basis, the role of genes could be indirect. Playing music is a complex cognitive behaviour that recruits pretty much your entire brain – from auditory and motor centres to decision-making and emotion-mediating centres. So having musical ability could simply be a side-effect of having more general genetically determined abilities such as hand-eye coordination, motor skills, memory for sequences and certain structures and a sense of rhythm and timing. Furthermore getting anywhere as a musician often comes down to character. Success (in anything) requires one to have passion, determination, discipline, grit, persistence and patience. 

So the answer to the nature-versus-nurture debate on musical ability is likely that both have a part to play in a complex web of interactions.

Having said all this, there is still the “talent” itself to explain. Just like some people have an intuitive predilection to work with their hands or to do mental calculations or to master the chessboard, mine is to learn how to play music. I still remember my violin teacher calling me a “sponge” when I started taking lessons, age 8, and going straight to sitting the Grade 3 examination. Just a shame I never had the discipline to make something more of it... 

It appears that the origin of such talents remain a mystery to neuroscientists. And it's still a big question whether being musically talented extends to the heightening other cognitive functions. One thing's for sure, though, having a good grasp of any rule-based activity, from a language to chess to music requires a decent memory of the rules and structure of that activity. Levitin writes (p.217):

“Expertise in any domain is characterized by a superior memory, but only for things within the domain for expertise... Grandmaster chess players have memorized thousands of board and game configurations. However, their exceptional memory for chess extends only to legal positions of the chess pieces. Asked to memorize random arrangements of pieces on a board, they do no better than novices; in other words, their knowledge of chess piece positions is schematized, and relies on knowledge of the legal moves and positions that pieces can take. Likewise, experts in music rely on their knowledge of musical structure. Expert musicians excel at remembering chord sequences that are “legal” or make sense within the harmonic systems that they have experience with, but they do no better than anyone else at learning sequences of random chords.”

As I am currently learning simple classical pieces on the guitar, I am experiencing my brain work first hand! As someone whose memory is deeply ingrained with what cognitive psychologists call a “schema” or framework for classical music – that is, implicit knowledge of the way classical music works which is different from the way pop or jazz works - I find myself automatically using this mental structure to help me gain mastery over a new piece of music. I know roughly how a melody will play out, from its contours (the way it moves up or down) to the way it resolves itself. My brain therefore doesn't have to work too hard in memorising the tune while it does the harder task of figuring out what my fingers on both hands should be doing. 

Thanks to my musical training as a child, I can also read musical notation. The challenge – albeit a relatively small one – has been to learn the correspondence between the notes on the page and the fingering on the fret board (neck of the guitar), which produces the notes we hear. For general memorisation, we find it easier to memorise sequences in which the units are arranged in series or meaningful chunks as opposed to randomly (so, for memorising number sequences, it's easier to memorise “3456789” than “2978345”). I've found this to be the case in acquiring the muscle memory on the fretboard when learning a tune. Notes that are close together tonally are much easier to memorise and play than notes that jump up and down the fretboard and across strings. 

How nice is it to finally read a book that offers insights that are truly relevant to one's life :-) I highly recommend this book if you, music geek, want to vindicate an obsession.

I, the closet shoegazer (Part III)

The benefits of being an introvert

This post is a continuation of:

I, the closet shoegazer (Part I)

What it means to be an introvert (Part II)

So, finally, onto the last post of this series on introversion. Anymore on the subject and you might begin to think that I am both introverted and obsessive :-) 

***

I think I speak for many introverts when I say that I have succumbed to the draw of being a bright, bubbly crowd-pleaser in order to fit into the West's culture of personality – the culture that spawned social directives such as those found in Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends and Influence People. 

Although I have nothing against stretching my comfort zone by taking on a less frigid exterior in front of a crowd - indeed, I have profited handsomely from doing so - the pressure to conform to The Extravert Ideal (about which you'll find in Parts I & II) nonetheless has the danger of leading some of us down the path of self-denial, even self-negation. That is, in our efforts to stand out and be listened to we may come to ignore or dismiss the very qualities that make us worth listening to in the first place. 

So this post is about why introverts should stop worrying about being loud and talkative and to start valuing themselves for their own innate qualities and tendencies.

Tune in, turn on, drop out

In Part II, we saw how introverts are generally more sensitive to their environments than extroverts are. To use a bad analogy from cooking, if extroverts are lightly-fried vegetables blithely canvassing a Teflon-coated pan, introverts are hunks of slow-cooked pork that have soaked up the juices of the other ingredients in a crock pot. 

Because they take in a lot from their environments, introverts tend to be observant of the subtleties of what is going on around and within them. For example, they may notice a person's mood shifting or a lightbulb that is burning a touch too brightly. They may also react more profoundly to sublime experiences, such as a piece of classical music or a sunset, than a typical extrovert (who is too busy talking to notice LOL).

In Part I, I touched on how introverts may have a creative advantage over extroverts because of their preference and ability to work alone. Working alone seems to provide a ripe environment for achieving flow - that sweet spot of losing all sense of time when engaging in an activity that fires up the heart. An introvert's highly observant natures no doubt also fuels their creativity. Picture the stereotypical poet, painter or novelist contemplating his surroundings and emotional makeup, or the scientist engaged in solving a problem that arose from her own observations. 

Unsurprisingly, the internal lives of introverts are also likely to be more pronounced than that of extroverts. They tend to dream vividly and experience exceptionally strong emotions. This might explain why introverts are more likely to be philosophically or spiritually minded rather than materialistic or hedonistic.

Quiet survival

If the tale of evolution is powered by the 'survival of the fittest', how could such highly sensitive creatures compete with more aggressive alpha types in a Hobbesian prehistoric world in which life was short and brute?

Susan Cain, in her bestselling book Quiet, seeks an answer in the research of noted psychologist Elaine Aron. According to Aron, the personal quality of high sensitivity was not itself selected for “but rather the careful, reflective style that tends to accompany it.” Quoting Aron, Cain writes:

“The type that is 'sensitive' or 'reactive' would reflect a strategy of observing carefully before acting... thus avoiding dangers, failures, and wasted energy, which would require a nervous system specifically designed to observe and detect subtle differences. It is a strategy of 'betting on a sure thing' or 'looking before you leap.'” 

In line with this, some researchers think that the child who is 'slow to warm up' in the playground could actually be studying the interpersonal dynamics at work from the sidelines to see where he or she fits in.  

In contrast, extroverts or low reactive types tend to act before they have received complete information or assessed the attendant risks of taking action. 

The findings of evolutionary biologists, most notably David Sloan Wilson, seem to confirm Aron's theory. In the animal kingdom more than a hundred species have been found to be divided into what Cain calls the “watch and wait” types and the “just do it” types. As if this isn't astonishing enough, as in the human species (see Part II), the watch-and-wait group makes up about 20 percent of any given species population while the just-do-it group makes up the rest. 

Needless to say, each 'personality' group bears radically different survival strategies, with their own pros and cons. This is known as the 'trade-off' theory whereby each survival strategy is neither all good nor all bad. As Cain explains: “Shy animals forage less often and widely for food, conserving energy, sticking to the sidelines, and surviving when predators come calling. Bolder animals sally forth, swallowed regularly by those farther up the food chain but surviving when food is scarce and they need to assume more risk.”

The trade-off theory certainly applies in the human world. For instance, it's been shown that extroverts tend to have more sexual partners than introverts, which is probably a good thing for a species wishing to expand and conquer; but they also commit adultery and divorce more, which is probably not such a good thing if the objective is to raise kids. 

Jung was cognisant of this fact when he wrote: “the one [extroversion] consists in a high rate of fertility, with low powers of defense and short duration of life for the single individual; the other [introversion] consists in equipping the individual with numerous means of self-preservation plus a low fertility rate”.

The bottom line, then, is that there is a place and need for both introverts and extroverts on this earth.

They are less likely to say the wrong thing at the wrong time

As we've seen, an introvert's comfort in hanging back with her thoughts and observations means that she's more likely to think before she acts. This normally includes thinking before speaking! 

Recent studies have shown that introverts not only take in more information about their surroundings than extroverts, they also think more deeply and in more complex ways. 

This means you're unlikely to find many introverts who like small talk. As psychologist Aron explains, “If you're thinking in more complicated ways, then talking about the weather or where you went for the holidays is not quite as interesting as talking about values or morality.”

This is where I confess that, in this regard, I'm no longer a pure introvert. Even though I remain pretty observant (I love people watching!), I have become a lot lazier in my thought processes than when I was at university (as a philosophy major). From journalism to editing to teaching, the careers that I have since dabbled in have all required a) a cursory knowledge of many subjects and b) pretty advanced social skills (ironically). On a purely practical level, deep and elaborate thinking in these fast-moving professions seemed at best, indulgent, and at worst, a waste of time. 

Unfortunately, I now feel the pernicious effects of losing it for not using it, having spent the better part of the last decade habitually taking mental short cuts – what psychologists call heuristics [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heuristic ] - when solving a problem or making a decision. To be sure, for quick decisions with trivial consequences (such as where to have dinner) this approach has been more than adequate. But for significant decisions requiring more than a shade of analytical thinking (such as dealing with a difficult landlord), I have often found myself impatient to delve into the pros and cons and contingencies of a decision. Fortunately, for better or worse, I have had my other half, M, to intrust the task of difficult deliberation because he's such a natural at it. (On a side note: it is absolutely fascinating seeing the outward signs of his mind at work. He falls silent and his eyes start moving from side to side as if he's in a state of REM sleep. Incidentally there is a proven connection between daydreaming and creativity.)

They are less likely to eat the marshmellow and gamble away their life savings

Back in the early sixties, Walter Mischel tested a group of four-year-olds on their ability to hold off  eating from a plate of marshmellows for 15-20 minutes with the knowledge that they would each be rewarded an extra marshmellow for their patience. The study showed that the children who were able to restrain themselves for the full 20 minutes – that is, to delay gratification – grew up to be more academically successful as teenagers as well as more emotionally stable and less stressed than the children who dug in before the time was up. 

Unfortunately for extroverts, introverts tend to be better at delaying gratification. This may be because extroverts are more enthusiastic reward seekers, a phenomenon that has been demonstrated at the neuroscientific level. 

As in one's primal fear-based responses, the pleasure circuit also involves the amygdala in the primitive mid-brain region.

Cain writes: “Just as the amygdala of a high-reactive person is more sensitive than average to novelty, so do extroverts seem to be more susceptible than introverts to the reward-seeking cravings of the old brain.”

Typical rewards are external, including money, sex, cocaine, chocolate, expensive handbags, top dog status and human connection. 

Cain goes on to state the astonishing fact that, “some scientists are starting to explore the idea that reward-sensitivity is not only an interesting feature of extroversion, it is what makes an extrovert an extrovert.”

The reason extroverts may be more enthusiastic reward seekers is that they experience more pleasure and excitement from rewards than introverts do because the pleasure circuit in their brains - mediated by the neurotransmitter dopamine - is more active. 

“The more responsive your brain is to dopamine, or the higher the level of dopamine you have available to release, some scientists believe, the more likely you are to go after rewards like sex, chocolate, money, and status”.

What's more, reward seeking behaviour isn't just driven by heightened pleasure to rewards. An exaggerated response to the mere possibility and anticipation of a reward also counts for a lot. This is essentially the basis of impulsiveness. The child who isn't able to resist the marshmellows feels more acutely the sweet temptation than the child who is able to resist. But once the impulse is satisfied, the high often vanishes too. (That's a warning to all retail therapists!)

As in fear-based responses, impulsive behaviour is ultimately a product of a contest in which the dopamine pathway in the 'old' midbrain triumphs over the seat of willpower in the 'new' prefrontal cortex. Indeed, research has shown that less impulsive people tend to display more activity in their prefrontal cortex. What after all stops a person from demolishing another slice of chocolate cake? 

All this suggests that people who have hyperactive dopamine circuits have drawn the short straw: they need to have more will power to stay away from the chocolate cake than people who are more dopaminergically placid. 

Also, while there are positive aspects to 'feeling buzzed' while bouncing along the pleasure circuit, buzz can also lead one down the paths of disaster and self-destruction, especially if one also has an unhealthy penchant for risk-taking. Fact is, pleasurable stimulation of any kind and the accompanying feelings of euphoria dampen our ability to assess the dangers and risks of action. That's why people are more likely to do stupid things when they are drunk or drugged. While the consequences can tickle the sadistic funny bones of onlookers (epic fail LOL!), they can also wreck wholesale catastrophe -- as in what happens when you put a bunch of alpha types in a room with a lot of money to play with.

They are less likely to lie, cheat, steal and kill

As Cain writes, “It's as if [introverts] have thinner boundaries separating them from other people's emotions and from the tragedies and cruelties of the world.”

The empathic nature of an introvert is linked to them having strong social consciences, which in turn makes them more acutely aware of the consequences of their own and others' misbehaviour. 

They have more grit

During my formative years (the 80s and 90s), the reigning belief about one's potential for success pretty much came down to how clever you were born to be. Parents who had the means rushed to get their child's IQ tested so that they could determine what sort of 'intervention' would be needed to give their child the best possible start in life. Fortunately, the past decade has seen a sea change in the thinking of what makes some children more successful than others. Innate intelligence is still a significant determiner but it is no longer considered the be-all and end-all. Instead a lot more focus – at least in psychology circles and increasingly in education too – is now placed on cultivating personality characteristics and emotional intelligence. With this new understanding, we can see why the lazy genius with an IQ of 140 will do less in his life than the diligent and determined so-and-so with an IQ of 120. This topic is explored in detail in Paul Tough's 2012 book How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character.   

So how does character relate to introversion? Well, in line with the finding that introverts are better able to delay gratification than their extroverted peers, they are also more persistent and resilient in the face of challenges. Because they are less focussed on the reward at the end of solving a problem or working on a project, but instead value more the process of the work or activity, they are less likely to abandon it when they hit roadblocks than someone who craves immediate gratification.

How to raise an Orchid child

As we've seen, because of their highly reactive nervous systems (see Part II for details), a sensitive child tends to have a strong social conscience, be better able to empathise with other people (and animals), and to 'reform' if they've made a mistake or done something they know they shouldn't have. 

To encourage these virtuous qualities in a highly reactive child, however, requires a stable, nurturing environment. High reactive children are otherwise more prone than their low reactive peers of becoming depressed and guilt-ridden. 

Here Cain mentions David Dobbs' 'Orchid Hypothesis'. The idea is that high reactive children are like orchids who wilt easily in suboptimal conditions but can otherwise bloom and thrive under the right conditions. In other words, these children tend to have an exaggerated response to both bad and good environments. In contrast are children who are more like 'dandelions' as they are better able to adapt to a variety of environments.

Citing one prominent proponent of the Orchid Hypothesis, Jay Belsky, Cain writes that an ideal parent to a high reactive child is someone who “can read your cues and respect your individuality; is warm and firm in placing demands on you without being harsh or hostile; promotes curiosity, academic achievement, delayed gratification, and self-control; and is not harsh, neglectful, or inconsistent.” 

Although this is good advice for all parents, it is essential to raising a high reactive kid.

Needless to say, the question of parenting is also crucial when it comes to raising fearless low reactive children. These children who are not so easily fazed by novel situations, if brought up in a nurturing environment and given the opportunity to channel their fearless, bold energy into productive activities such as performance, sport and leadership, can shine like the Richard Bransons of the world. If, however, they are raised in challenging environments without consistent adult care and good role models, they could well be headed for a life of antisocial behaviour and crime.

This is certainly a thought I had about an 11-year-old girl I recently mentored on a youth project. The girl has an unmistakable leadership streak and fierce charisma. However, she rejects almost all authority, and is unaffected by punishments such as 'time out'. To combat this, the project leader and I decided to give her activities that we felt would especially interest her, such as the opportunity to write a short script and then act it out with some of the other young participants in the programme. This turned out to be a pretty good idea as the activity played to her strengths and interests and kept her out of trouble (for a day, at least). 

Cain dedicates an entire chapter on raising introverted children. Even if you don't have kids, it makes for interesting reading just to see how different children develop in different ways depending on a complex mix of genetic endowment and the home environment. You'll then come to appreciate the immense power and responsibility that parents and caregivers have in shaping the lives of their brood.

Moral of the story: there seems to be significant differences between extroverts and introverts. Each have their own strengths and preferences, and for the world to function more optimally, whether in the workplace or at home, both personality types need to be given their moment to shine. To balance the loud with the quiet.

I, the closet shoe gazer (Part II)

What it means to be an introvert

In Part I, I left off on the topic of how the Extrovert Ideal - a phrase coined by Susan Cain in her brilliant book Quiet - came to rule the fast-paced corporate cultures of the West (America's, but also Britain's). Whether in school, university or the workplace, we are conditioned to believe that the necessary qualities for success in the workplace include leadership skills, team playing prowess, ability to talk the talk, a penchant for risk taking, and general gregariousness. These are all extrovert-type attributes, as they focus on our outward attitude and relations to other people. In essence, success as defined by the Extrovert Ideal is measured by the influence we have over other people. 

In contrast, introverted qualities like thoughtfulness,  reflectiveness, and being able to listen to others are considered secondary. But the tide could be shifting. The growing business of mindfulness in the workplace is surely a response to the proven ill effects of being switched-on and connected all the time.

As I mentioned in Part I, the Extrovert Ideal was something I became conscious of as a young child. My dad acknowledged but did not prize the stereotypical Chinese parental values of quiet studiousness over qualities like leadership and (measured) risk-taking. He wanted me to become a bold, people-oriented human being unafraid to speak rather than one closeted in the drama and strife of her own internal life. Unfortunately, in his eyes I was dangerously hurtling toward becoming the latter personality type. After all, I was a timid child who seldom spoke up in class and recoiled at anything new and challenging. So from the ages of 6-15, my parents committed me to one long confidence building course that included team sport participation and drama lessons. My dad - bless him - also coached me on the speeches I had to give every year from Year 5 through to Year 9 in secondary school. Thankfully, his efforts duly paid off as my speech giving always landed me near the top of the class. 

My parents' work to stretch my comfort zone continued outside of school. I was encouraged to interact with their adult friends, so that by the time I became a teenager, I felt far more comfortable in their company than with my pimply peers. My early initiation into the grown-up world of conversation also taught me how to speak in proper, cogent sentences, about a range of topics that did not involve the merits or demerits of this or that boy in the class next door. 

Gradually, with all this social desensitisation, I was able to override my shyness to the point that I am now able to appear outgoing and gregarious! As we shall see in Part III, a subset of introverts do indeed have the trickery to appear extroverted. 

But first, what makes an introvert introverted?

Introverts aren't (necessarily) people haters

You may be familiar with the stereotype of an introvert: someone who is a socially awkward, misanthropic who has trouble maintaining eye contact. While there is always some truth to stereotypes, the assumption that introverts dislike other people is actually wide off the mark. An introvert often has a close circle of friends with whom they enjoy deep (even serious) conversations. This implies that introverts often find small talk at best a waste of time, and at worst as uncomfortable as a ticking time bomb of social blundering. That explains why I never liked networking events. 

Extroverts on the other hand tend to boast larger social circles (500+ friends on Facebook) but their relationships are more superficial. Which kind of makes sense when there are only 24 hours in a day.

Nor is introversion exclusively a social attitude. As will be explained later, many scientists and psychologists now reckon that introverts are actually physiologically more sensitive than extroverts are to environmental stimuli, whether that is people, sunsets, caffeine or noise. This means that their nervous systems react more profoundly to environmental input of any kind. They are therefore more likely to be overwhelmed by the onslaught of happenings at a cocktail party or the hustle and bustle of urban life than extroverts, who are by nature drawn to outward stimulation especially from people. This would explain why introverts generally prefer less stimulating environments than extroverts.  

In my case, although I need my regular dose of a good chin wag with friends, I also know that my threshold for social interactions is probably lower than that of a number of my acquaintances who seem to need people around them all the time. Social occasions, no matter how much I enjoy them, can utterly exhaust me. No alcohol needed! 

Cain talks about the necessity for both introverts and extroverts to create environments, whether at work or at home or out socialising, that they find offers "optimal levels of arousal". Introverts often thirst for “restorative niches”, a phrase coined by Professor Brian Little, a legendary former Harvard psychology professor and self-described 'classical introvert' who won countless students over with his style of lecturing. Restorative niches are moments of calm designed to break up an introvert's day especially if they are engaged in a series of highly extroverted activities, such as giving presentations, negotiating or socialising.

I know that on almost any given day I will hanker for a little solitary walk or some time out to read my book. My soon-to-be-husband M, who is even more introverted than I am, often voices his frustration at not having any time to himself in a work environment that is intellectually and socially demanding. On top of this, he finds it difficult to participate in the British culture of afterwork pubcrawling with colleagues. The truth is, after 8 hours of interacting with his colleagues, the last thing he wants to do is to socialise with them as well. If he liked beer, he could at least drink away that discomfort!

"Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue" - Shakespeare 

The theory that introversion is really a preference for a certain amount of outward stimulation also explains why many introverts dislike or struggle to speak on the fly or wing it on the podium. Social interaction, whether it is engaging in conversation or speaking to the public, is an immensely complex set of behaviours that involves a whole host of psychological processes. In fact, it is one of the most stimulating activities humans do. But as we've seen, introverts have a lower threshold for stimulation of any kind. Numerous studies have shown that overarousal interferes with attention and short-term memory - which, as Cain writes, are key components to being able to improvise on the spot. I, for one, have caught myself losing my train of thought mid-sentence with someone when the environment that I am in becomes too crowded with other peoples' conversations. It's probably a case of my brain shutting down from being a bit too overwhelmed.

Cain's advise for introverts whose jobs demand that they give presentations or network with clients, prepare beforehand! Once introverts know what they are talking about, they can go on and on. Think Al Gore on climate change.

I'm not touchy, I'm just highly reactive!

One of the most fascinating sections of Quiet looks at the physiological and neuroscientific basis of introversion. The implication is that the brains and nervous systems of introverts are significantly different from the brains and nervous systems of extroverts.

Cain introduces us to the pioneering work of Jerome Kagan who, in the late 1980s, studied the different attitudes or approaches to novel stimulus of infants. He found that about 20 per cent of the infants he studied reacted overtly (crying, arms flailing) to novel stimulus such as balloons popping, tape recorded voices and cotton swabs. In contrast, the other 80 per cent of infants were decidedly more calm. 

Kagan concluded that babies are born with one of two contrasting temperaments: they are either 'high reactive' or 'low reactive', and that these temperaments roughly correspond to the personality types of introversion and extroversion. High reactive types are physiologically more sensitive to novelty and their environments in general than low reactive types are. For instance, the group of high reactive babies in Kagan's study exhibited greater spikes in their heart rates, blood pressure, finger temperature, pupil dilation and other nervous signals when immersed in a strange, unfamiliar environment. Such reactions are linked to these babies having more active amygdalae, that structure in our primitive brain that processes emotions like fear and pleasure, and sets off the fight-or-flight response via the sympathetic nervous system. 

If memory serves me correctly, there is every indication that I would have been one of the children in Kagan's study who cried and flailed at balloons popping... I remember:

• I hated the explosive bangs of balloons and fireworks and was always startled by someone suddenly entering a room when I was alone in it. Even now, the sound of sirens and balloons popping still send me on edge.
• One of the most excruciating experiences of my childhood was having to stare into the line of the sun for a photo opportunity. I cried every time as if I'd just walked into a room full of onion vapour. 
• Unlike other children, I did not like fizzy soft drinks because my super sensitive tongue could not hack the bubbles. As a consequence, I did not get my first cavity until I was 12 or around the time I started eating sweets without my parents knowing. 
• Despite being a water baby (I'm both a Pisces and a Water Rat), I had to be desensitised to the aqueous stuff with the heroic patience of my parents. I remember screaming and shouting at my poor mum whenever she got me under the shower head. I just hated having liquid in my eyes that wasn't my own!

And as for my approach to the social world, I was definitely the kid who stood at the sidelines observing the playground until I'd deemed it safe enough to wade in. The prospect of meeting new kids at a family friends' gathering always made my stomach turn. But once I'd 'warmed up', I could be the friendliest child on the planet!

So there you have it. I would have fit right into Kagan's group of highly reactive children. Luckily, I've come a long way since the trials with novelty in the playground. Through a mix of coercion and sheer willpower, I have become pretty adept at navigating new situations and challenges, to the extent that I can appear to be rather restless!

Kagan's research on differing responses to novelty might explain an introvert's preference for working alone rather than in an environment requiring input from other people. In an interview with Cain, he says that high reactives often choose solitary intellectual vocations like writing because "you're in charge: you close the door, pull down the shades and do your work. You're protected from encountering unexpected things." 

Temperament versus Personality

As nothing in psychology is ever black and white, Kagan reminds Cain that not all high reactive children develop into introverts nor are all introverts necessarily in possession of highly reactive nervous systems. Elaine Aron, another research psychologist, reckons that 70 percent of sensitive or high reactive people are introverts, while the remaining 30 percent are extroverts who nonetheless need more alone time than the typical extrovert. 

Jung already saw the difference between temperament (high versus low reactivity) and personality (introversion versus extraversion). You're pretty much born with a certain temperament, but your personality type is only 40-50 per cent heritable – that is, determined by your genetic makeup. 

In other words, while your temperament has a role in shaping your personality, your upbringing and environment has a significantly larger part to play in who you'll become. 

Can you 'grow out' of your temperament?

The short answer is no, at least not completely. 

In my case, I was probably born with a high reactive temperament but because of the opportunities my parents afforded me (all those speech and drama lessons!), I was able to stretch my comfort zone and successfully engage with the world outside my own head. By 19, I was living in Los Angeles, thousands of miles away from my family in New Zealand, and I was studying hard and playing harder. Now more than 20 years since, I have lived in four different continents, experimented with even more career options, including being a travelling salesperson of all extroverted occupations! 

Despite the fact that I've managed to turn my life around (and upside down as an Antipodean living in the UK), something has nevertheless stuck within me. 

Carl Schwartz, a protégé and colleague of Kagan's, continued Kagan's research on high reactivity by conducting a set of novelty-response experiments on the same participants in Kagan's first study who were now all grown up. Sure as nuts, the individuals who were deemed 'high reactive' in the first experiment as children still exhibited more activity in their amygdalae - the brain centre involved in processing emotion - to images of unfamiliar faces than their low reactive counterparts. This was the case even if the high reactive individuals were unconscious of being affected by the images. 

Fortunately, as in my own story, with a bit (or a lot) of willpower, one can override one's natural tendencies, even if it's just for a moment.

This is because our behaviour is governed by the relative strength of signals coming from two brain systems. I've already mentioned the older limbic structures of the midbrain centring around the amygdala. On top of this, we have evolved a new brain structure that makes us uniquely human. This is the neocortex and in particular the prefrontal cortex. The prefrontal cortex is involved in our ability to make decisions and to put forward the most appropriate actions in any circumstance. As Daniel Goleman explains in his highly influential book Emotional Intelligence our response to the environment is mediated by the cross talk between the neocortex and the older emotional brain. We can only make decisions if we know how we feel about the possible outcomes. In other words, all decision making is emotional.

But we can train the neocortex to have a greater influence over our actions than the amygdala. Take the classic case of deciding whether or not to have that extra slice of chocolate cake. The amygdala, which is also integral to a person's internal reward system as we shall see in Part III, may be screaming 'Yes, please!' at the sight and smell of the cake. But the prefrontal cortex, the seat of willpower and reason, is telling us that it's an appetite spoiler. If we attempt to ignore this little voice, chances are, guilty feelings will surface. That's because the prefrontal cortex is also the seat of morality!

To take another example, when a shy introvert approaches a room full of strangers, his amygdala will probably go haywire. What hopefully prevents him from flipping out completely are the circuits in his prefrontal cortex that enable him to assess the situation and conclude that it is actually non-life threatening and therefore it's not necessary to flee.

Even so, when it comes to overriding the whims of the amygdala, one can never actually extinguish its response. In other words, we are hardwired to feel fear (or pleasure) to certain stimulus. This is most certainly the case when it comes to shyness, a primitive fear response that is probably a behavioural adaptation from our time as hunter gatherers roaming a predator-heavy savannah.

As Cain writes, “This helps explain why many high reactive kids retain some of the fearful aspects of their temperament all the way into adulthood, no matter how much social experience they acquire or free will they exercise.”

In my case, I still encounter networking opportunities (which I do my best to avoid) with trepidation no matter how many such events I had to attend when I was a staff magazine writer. Similarly, conducting interviews when I was a journalist was never my favourite part of the job. I much preferred doing the write-up afterwards.

And even though I crave a bit of adventure these days, certain novel situations, particularly situations in which there is a lot of uncertainty and for which I have little control over, still make my palms sweat and my heart beat faster. Knowing this, my choice to work with children now seems utterly counterintuitive. Every new day in the classroom dredged up the same set of psychological challenges that I have to overcome beforehand. Kids, after all, are as unpredictable as the weather, charming one moment, irascible another. After reading Cain's book, I now see how by choosing to work with kids, I was asking for more novelty than I actually like.

In Part III, I look at why introverts and high reactive people can be awesome and why the world needs them.

I, the closet shoegazer (Part I)

So I decided to count my blessings this morning. You know, start the week on a high by thinking about all the things I'm grateful for in my life. Because if I'm really honest, despite my weakness for a morning grumble on the side of my first cup of coffee, life is actually pretty good right now. 

One of the day's first happy thoughts was the fact that I managed to finish reading 5 non-fiction books in 6 weeks. More than that, every one of these books gave me that coveted Yes! Yes! satisfaction – surely a book reader's equivalent of an orgasm. Book #1 was Bruce Lipton's mind expanding adventure, Biology of Belief. Book #2 was Molecules of Emotion written by possibly the most important female scientist of the 20th century since Marie Curie. Her name is Candace Pert (1946-2013), and if you watched Dallas Buyer's Club you will have been acquainted with Peptide T, Pert's cure for the HIV virus. Pert's book was so powerful that it made me wrench with fury at the treatment and perception of women scientists in a male-run industry, at the same time as it made me rejoice at her outstanding work at bridging science and spirituality.

After I finished Pert's book, by some deft hand of synchronicity, a good friend of mine gave me Carl Gustav Jung's Memories, Dreams, Reflections (Book #3) for my birthday. The day I received it was the day after I started a dream diary based on Pert's advice about getting in touch with the underworld of the soul. This coincidence - which felt cosmic! - shot through the mire of muck and muddle that consumed me around the time. I was clearly in need of wisdom from great people who were/are neither mythical nor magical but who'd accomplished and experienced extraordinary things in pretty ordinary circumstances. 

(Such was my state of desperation, I interspersed Jung's story with Roman Krznaric's pithy but pointed How To Find Fulfilling Work (Book #4).)

Jung was a deeply spiritual man and possibly one of the 20th century's most eminent introverts. It was he who first articulated the various personality types by defining extroversion and introversion. 

I mention this because, in yet another strange twist of fate, just before I received Jung's autobiography, I had picked up Book #5 - a copy of Susan Cain's Sunday Times bestseller Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking. 

(Jung's hallmark theory was clearly at play in my life: the friend who gave me his autobiography was riding the same wavelength as I within the collective unconscious!)

Silence is golden, isn't it?

Quiet is an eye-opening defence - nay, celebration - of people who often find themselves overshadowed by people louder and faster-speaking than themselves or annoyingly coerced into SPEAKING UP if they wish for something other than a one-way ticket to oblivion. 

Who are these quiet people? Well, you're reading the words of one of them!

Cain - who is herself an introvert with a once-crippling fear of public speaking - does a thorough job at showing people like me that - YAY! - I am neither alone in feeling or reacting the way I do to certain situations and environments in my life, nor is there anything particularly wrong with us. Indeed, she builds a convincing case that the world needs introverts. After all, introversion survived nature's evolutionary pressures, so it must have some use. Introverts needing a bit of validation need only look to the impressive number of accomplished individuals who changed the world in their own quiet way: Mother Teresa, CG Jung, Einstein, Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, Eleanor Roosevelt, Mahatma Gandhi and Barack Obama. 

Over the next three posts I will summarise parts of Cain's book, interweaving it with my own experiences of being an introvert. 

But first, let's do a short test to see where you fit in on the introversion-extroversion spectrum. For each of the 20 questions below, answer True or False.

1. ____ I prefer one-on-one conversations to group activities.

2. ____ I often prefer to express myself in writing.

3. ____ I enjoy solitude.

4. ____ I seem to care less than my peers about wealth, fame, and status.

5. ____ I dislike small talk, but I enjoy talking in depth about topics that matter to me.

6. ____ People tell me that I'm a good listener.

7. ____ I'm not a big risk-taker.

8. ____ I enjoy work that allows me to “dive in” with few interruptions.

9. ____ I like to celebrate birthdays on a small scale, with only one or two close friends or family members.

10. ____ People describe me as “soft-spoken” or “mellow”.

11. ____ I prefer not to show or discuss my work with others until it's finished.

12. ____ I dislike conflict.

13. ____ I do my best work on my own.

14. ____ I tend to think before I speak.

15. ____ I feel drained after being out and about, even if I've enjoyed myself.

16. ____ I often let calls go through to voicemail.

17. ____ If I had to choose, I'd prefer a weekend with absolutely nothing to do to one with too many things scheduled.

18. ____ I don't enjoy multitasking.

19. ____ I can concentrate easily.

20. ____ In classroom situations, I prefer lectures to seminars.

(This test is Cain's formulation. Although it is not a scientifically validated test for introversion, the questions asked are based on characteristics of introversion that are widely accepted by contemporary researchers.)

I answered 17/20 questions as TRUE.   

“What? Really?” I hear you think :-)

In a world of our own

In addition to the test above, a cursory understanding of introversion is best summed up by the great introvert Jung who wrote that an introvert “is drawn to the inner world of thought and feeling” while the extrovert “is drawn to the external life of people and activities”. 

My parents became conscious of my tendency to “turn inward” even before I hit those awkward teenage years. I was the kid who preferred living inside my head, off in my own world during classroom 'mat sessions' to the consternation of at least one primary school teacher. Had ADD and ADHD been fashionable terms to label children back then ((I'm talking the early nineties), I can only imagine the horror of being so labelled, not to mention the stress on my poor parents with their 'sick' child. 

Even though I lived inside my head a lot, I was also very observant of my surroundings. I would take a sort of fascination to banal events like the sound of high heels click-clacking on linoleum, the dank sweet smell of blossoms after a good spring shower, the arrangement of pebbles and stones in the pavement that looked like a birds eye view of a megalopolis, and the different layouts of the various classrooms at school. I would then create stories in my head using these observations as content, usually as a way of staving off boredom if I didn't have crayons and paper to hand. 

Being an only child, I also had my share of imaginary friends. But I'll leave that topic aside.

Then came the ghastly adolescent and the not-quite-a-woman years that followed. As many of you reading this will have experienced, the 'real world' during this time usually reeked of Mean Girls-style hormone-fuelled gangsterism in the school yard. For better or worse, I was totally unqualified to participate in this febrile culture as I had neither the confidence nor the streetwise nous to hold my own. So I naturally retreated into my comfort zone – the familiar world inside my head. Compared to school, it was a romantic place, furnished with the sounds and images of the hippy and punk countercultures in which young people sought to change the world (and took awesome mind-expanding drugs) rather than fester in their own boredom.

Understandably, my parents wanted me to be a normal teenager who had the discipline to get good grades and the likability to have a healthy social life. Although my grades were just above mediocre because I studied only what I liked, what worried my parents more was whether I had the potential to bloom into a confident human being who could assert herself in the more unforgiving world of earning a living. Thinking back, I remember my dad – a classic introvert himself – admonishing me for always being “inward looking”, which really translated into the moral judgement of being “self-centred”. He had a point, but his admonishment bothered me for years. As I would later learn reading Cain's book, no introvert likes to be made to feel guilty, especially for something they perceive as a character flaw. 

And so what Cain calls the Extrovert Ideal was instilled in me at a young age.

The introvert's outlook

Introversion and extroversion are not absolute categories, but nodes on a spectrum that describe a range of psychological preferences and tendencies. I know that I am mostly introverted, but have certain unmistakably extroverted tendencies. M, my soon-to-be husband, on the other hand is more 'classically' introverted. You can also be an 'ambivert' if you're neither entirely introverted nor entirely extroverted.

As Jung wrote, introverts generally prefer being left alone to their thoughts, ideas and imaginations. They tend to gravitate towards intellectual and creative vocations such as writing, art, music, psychology, science, maths, IT and research. 

Introverts also prefer peacemaking to warmongering, consensus over conflict. Their power lies in their ideas and values rather than in their ability to talk the talk –  as an extrovert's might. In other words, while extroverts like to do the talking, introverts like to do the thinking. What's more they tend to be more eloquent in writing (that includes emails) than talking.

This doesn't mean that introverts can't be good leaders. To be sure, their leadership style tends to be less assuming than an extrovert's; if extroverts like to grab the spotlight, introverts are the backseat drivers. Both styles are proven effective in their own way. Cain writes about a wing commander in the US Airforce who, despite being a “classically introverted” person, is an incredibly effective and respected leader. This has come down to his ability to encourage and support his subordinates to contribute to key decision making while retaining the final authority on the matter. In contrast, an extroverted leader might want to grab the bull by the horns and impose his or her vision in the corporate boardroom. 

Introverts also tend to think before they act, while extroverts like to Just Do It. The latter also demonstrate a greater need to seek rewards, whether that's sex, money or status, and to take more risks, both good and bad. No surprise, then, that introverts are less likely than extroverts to start wars or cause a financial crash. 

Just as there is the argument that if there were more women in positions of power we would have less hawkish behaviour in both the political and corporate worlds, so there is the argument that if more naturally risk-adverse introverts on the trading floors of the world's banks are listened to, the banking industry would be less like a house of cards. 

There is therefore a place in the world for both extroverts and introverts to operate. 

The Extravert Ideal

Cain, however, laments that in America (and increasingly in Britain and parts of Western Europe) the world of work is rigged to benefit extroverts to the exclusion of introverts like herself. 

From Harvard Business School to Fortune 500 companies, people are encouraged to speak up and speak well (even if they don't have a clue what they're talking about) or else get left behind. On this note, I recently read a feature in the Observer about the speculation surrounding Chelsea Clinton's potential foray into US politics. Despite Clinton's clear intelligence and impressive resumé, which includes two Masters degrees from Oxford University as well as her current position as the vice chair of the Clinton Foundation, a lot of attention has been drawn to her personality (or lack thereof). She has been lambasted by critics for being "exceedingly, eyes-glazing-over-ly, admirably dull" and therefore not really fit for the political spotlight like her parents. The author of the article suggested as much: “One wonders if Chelsea might actually be happiest crunching numbers – as she did at her hedge fund – behind the scenes at the Clinton Foundation, rather than playing political protagonist.” 

After reading Cain's book, I in turn wonder why there still exists such speculation when there have been numerous examples of great leadership based on the kind of pragmatism (over personality) that Chelsea would likely embody. Just look at Angela Merkel. Or Hilary Clinton, for that matter.

The struggle to express oneself in a world governed by the Extravert Ideal is something that M also faces on a daily basis. He is often frustrated at work whenever he finds it difficult to get a word in. He is soft spoken and a very careful speaker. Every word that comes out of his mouth has been thought through. I remember I used to tease him for taking 5 minutes to get to the point, no matter how well crafted his speech. Alas, in a fast-paced corporate world, there just doesn't seem to be much time and patience to listen to brilliant people like him.

The Extrovert Ideal at Work

If you wish to know what the archetypal statement of The Extrovert Ideal is, look no further than the open plan office. The cultural invention rests on the assumption that bulldozing down the walls of communication, and creating more opportunities for collaborative work, will up worker productivity. But research suggests that while open communication can do wonders for intimate relationships, it leaves a lot to be desired in the workplace.

Someone finds open plan offices anathematic is Steve Wozniak. He is the party pooping other founder of Apple, the dyed-in-the-wool engineering geek to Steve Jobs' messianic extroverted spokesperson. He also happens to be a champion for working alone, behind closed doors, especially if one's goal is to get anything of value done. 

In his memoir, the brilliantly titled iWoz, he writes about why solitude-loving introverts often enjoy a creative advantage over their more sociable peers and colleagues:

“Most inventors and engineers I've met are like me – they're shy and they live in their heads. They're almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone where they can control an invention's design without a lot of other people designing it for marketing or some other committee.”

Cain cites decades of research that show that the cornerstone of teamwork – brainstorming – doesn't actually work in generating innovative ideas. In fact, most company meetings are a gross waste of time, period – “toxic” even, according to Jason Fried, cofounder of web application company 37signals. 

The one exception to the abysmal performance of brainstorming is the kind that takes place online (more on the power of internet collaboration below). 

But our entire corporate culture is built on the primacy of teamwork. It's what Cain calls the New Groupthink, referring to the well-known psychological phenomenon in which group decision making tends to lead to suboptimal outcomes because of the pressure on team members to maintain harmony or consensus within the group. 

Not only is teamwork not all that, breaking down almost every barrier within an office environment results in the needless disruption of an individual's workflow. How can an employee get to that holy state of flow and the productivity that attends it if he or she is constantly at his boss and colleagues' beck and call? I still resent being told off like an errant child by my old boss for having my headphones on. Being enclosed in my own wall of sound was the closest thing I had to solitude.

Cain concludes that, “Open-plan offices have been found to reduce productivity and impair memory. They're associated with high staff turnover. They make people sick, hostile, unmotivated, and insecure.” Amen.

Luckily certain companies have cottoned on to the fact that employees (and the bottom line) need to work in spaces that are flexible – spaces that allow for group work as well as solitary work and a flow between the two. Some companies even allow employees to work from home a couple of days a week if they so choose – which would please introverts, no doubt.

To be clear, Cain doesn't pooh-pooh all forms of creative collaboration. She recognises the irony in which arguably history's most important example of creative collaboration is the advent of the World Wide Web and open source culture by a bunch of introverts. “[T]he early Web was a medium that enabled bands of often introverted individualists... to come together to subvert and transcend the usual ways of problem-solving.” 

However, this type of collaboration has one fundamental difference to the kind championed by our corporate culture: “open-source creators didn't share office space – often they didn't even live in the same country.” Cain writes that while our office culture lionises the innovation of open source culture (which brought us the likes of Wikipedia and MoveOn.org), in reality what works well online may not work at all well offline. “We failed to realise that what makes sense for the asynchronous, relatively anonymous interactions of the Internet might not work as well inside the face-to-face, politically charge, acoustically noisy confines of an open-plan office,” she writes.

Study well, study alone

It's a pretty well-known fact that the advantage of solitary productivity also extends to study practises. Students who hit the books alone score better than students who study and learn in group settings (remember all those times you and your group went off topic?). Cain mentions Deliberate Practice as the magic formula for mastering anything but this can only be done in solitude. She uses the example of musicians who, when practising their instruments alone, are able to zone in on the parts of a piece that they find personally challenging. They are thus able to make faster improvements than musicians who do most of their practise hours with other musicians, even if the two groups practised for the same number of hours.

Needless to say, the solitary focus on a single task is the opposite to one of the most valued attributes in the workplace: multitasking. I laugh now at all the times I had to embellish my CV with that heinous word even though I know that multitasking makes my stress levels shoot up because I find it difficult to focus on any one task and so end up accomplishing less overall. Unsurprisingly, my experiences have been corroborated by numerous studies showing just how ineffective multitasking can be.

Bucking the Extrovert Ideal

Cain traces the rise of the Extrovert Ideal in America to the twin ascendance of the corporate economy and the advertising industry. The likes of Dale Carnegie – a formally shy and awkward lad who secretly envied the power of natural leaders – paraded the virtues of leadership at the same time as advertisers started 'advising' people that in order to succeed in the brave new world of corporate living you had to become a 'personality' (by buying their stuff inevitably). 

This 'cult of personality' phenomenon swiftly usurped the pre-20th century ideals of character and virtue. Once upon a time, self-help guides taught that in order to live a good life, one should work at cultivating: citizenship, duty, work, golden deeds, honour, reputation, morals, manners and integrity. These attributes were summarily bumped off by altogether less attainable but infinitely more coveted ones like: magnetic, fascinating, stunning, attractive, glowing, dominant, forceful, energetic... In other words, it's all style over substance, baby, and we haven't looked back since.

Indeed, Cain writes that, “The 1960s tranquilizer Serentil followed with an ad campaign [which was] direct in its appeal to improve social performance. “FOR THE ANXIETY THAT COMES FROM NOT FITTING IN,” it empathized”. 

All this shows that, against the Extrovert Ideal, the word 'introvert' has become rather tainted. We – including I – often view people who are reserved or shy as less likeable than people who have no qualms about making conversation. While this diminished likability is probably something that an introvert can live with, the situation becomes less benign when our society judges them morally. As implied by that 1960s tranquiliser ad above, the assumption is that something is not quite the matter with the person who prefers spending his or her leisure time playing bridge or sewing than going on a pub crawl with a bunch of mates while preening like a peacock. 

That is the power that the Extrovert Ideal - turbocharged by the advertising industry - has had on our perceptions.

Jung, the uncanny genius, recognised as much. While introverts are “educators and promoters of culture” who showed the value of “the interior life which is so painfully wanting in our civilisation”, he wrote, their “reserve and apparently groundless embarrassment naturally arouse all the current prejudices against this type”.

Reading Cain's book has made me thank my lucky stars that I didn't grow up in America, the “most extroverted country” in the world – nor live there now. When I spent a year in Los Angeles a decade ago as a student, I remember feeling bewildered by the relentless flurry of campus activity that spun around me. My classmates all seemed to be doing their best to shine under the Extravert Ideal, simultaneously engaged in extracurricular clubs, sororities and fraternities, sports, theatre... while holding down part-time jobs or internships and not failing at one of America's top universities. (Now I think I have a pretty good idea of their secret of their 'success'.)

Against this backdrop of gregarious overachievement, I chose to take only 3 subjects at a time rather than the standard 4-5, while retaining all my spare time outside of my daily need for 8-9 hours of sleep, to hang out with friends and explore LA. Yes, I did have moments of feeling inadequate among the throng of superhumanity. But I take comfort in actually remembering a lot of what I did that year because my life wasn't a mindless blur. 

***

So what exactly makes an introvert introverted? What makes introverts answer TRUE to most of the questions posed in that quick litmus test for introversion near the beginning of this post? If you're bursting to know – because you're probably an introvert –  either read Cain's book or stay tuned for Part II.

YOLO manifesto

Here is my last post in a nutshell courtesy of the good people at Holstee via Brainpickings

I'm part of Generation YOLO and I'm proud of it.

I don't want to join the rat race.

Not be enslaved by machines, bureaucracies, boredom,

ugliness.

I don't want to be a moron, robot, commuter.

I don't want to become a fragment of a person.

I want to do my own thing.

I want to live (relatively) simply.

I want to deal with people, not masks.

People matter. Nature matters. Beauty matters. Wholeness matters.

I want to be able to care.

- E. F. Schumacher (from Good Work)

I am part of Generation YOLO. I am someone who appreciates how short life is and will not be content to live a life without meaning, soul and purpose. I am proud – and also grateful – to be that person, growing up in a time and place where I can think beyond basic sustainance.

It has been exactly 2 years since I walked away from a mind-numbing desk job that hollowed me out. By the time I'd decided to take the leap, I felt I had no reason to get up in the morning. My passions and talents had been left to wilt like an old banana peel whose flesh had long been gobbled up. My monkey brain was a constant churn of words like 'alienation' and 'anomie'. Yet I was only 28 and therefore still young enough to be wide eyed and hungry for life. It was a truly horrifying time. The feeling I had been wasting my time and energy on a job (and getting there through a year of unpaid internships) that made me feel less than human while barely paying the bills wasn't even half of it. Welcome to my version of a classic 21^st century tale about a 20-something trying to make it in London. 

It could have been much worse. I could have stuck to my guns for a further year (that is, if my job had survived the cull at the company that was to happen less than a year after I threw in the towel). But for what? The only people I had to appease by remaining on route to a 'respectable profession' like Editor at a publishing house were my loving parents. They'd given me everything to ensure that I would live out the dream of their generation: doing something 'respectable' (code for 'conventional'), preferably by using my intellect rather than my creativity or, God forbid, my hands – and, more crucially, having a coveted job for life.

Of course, the idea of having a job for life is no longer a reality. I completed graduate school in 2009 just as the economies of the developed world were crashing and banging into the most devastating recession since the Great Depression. Five years on and we're seeing growing numbers of 30-year-olds in the UK 'boomeranging' back to Mum and Dad's because they're either jobless or their salaries are too meagre to cover the costs of living in London. Life isn't quite like the baby boomer years.

What was truly horrifying about my quarter-life crisis was that I had no idea What Next. All I knew was that I could no longer linger in the depths of misery. I stank of the stuff and it made me ill. I had to try something new there and then. Luckily it only took a couple of months for the penny to drop. With support from M and, more grudgingly, from my parents, I handed in my resignation and set off on a voyage to the unseen lands of volunteering in my local community. In my eyes, volunteering was the best way for me to try my hand at, well, anything, without having to sign on the dotted line. Freed from the tunnel visioned confines of a 9-5 admin job, the world quite suddenly became abundant. My new 'job' would be to explore this brave new world and I duly took it up with gusto.

About a week after my last day at my old job, I joined the communications team of a small charity that focussed on running mentoring projects for society's marginalised. By giving my time freely, I not only received ample opportunities to build and explore skills I never knew I had; I also felt for the first time since moving to the UK that my efforts were appreciated in the workplace. The only snag was the odd ignorant contempt I got from certain people who consider unpaid work not 'work'. It's an attitude that is not only contemptuous of volunteers but also of the millions of mothers and fathers whose unsung unsalaried household work, according to one source, is valued at £30,000 a year! Just because this kind of productivity is not reflected in the national accounts doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

One of my dreams at the end of my twenties was to work with children. I'd always admired people who had a knack with kiddies, me not being one of them. Or so I thought. So I singlemindedly focussed on overturning this conviction by getting involved in a couple of local children's projects alongside my communications work for the mentoring charity. My efforts with the children were amply rewarded a year later when I was offered a paid position as a special needs assistant at a primary school in North London.

I wish I could end this post here with a fairytale ending – but it was not to be. Despite being quite a natural at it, after a few months on the job I realised that working with children in such an intense environment was just not for me. My doubts were amplified by some fundamental misgivings I have about the English school curriculum and the style in which children – with special needs or not – are taught in this country in the mainstream. Needless to say, the decision to withdraw from the position was yet another difficult one. I had become fond of the child I was assigned to work with and I also had to face the palpable bewilderment, if not outright disapproval, about my decision from my colleagues who thought it stupid to walk away from a job in troubling economic times. But I had to be honest with myself. My ability to fully shine in the job was hamstrung from the start. I did not want to be there. Period. Also, by withdrawing at an early stage, I reasoned that it would be less traumatic for the child who had yet to become attached to me.

At the same time as I was pursuing this 'calling' to work with children, I harboured ambitions of becoming a yoga teacher and qigong instructor. I attended yoga sessions 4-5 times a week to get my body and soul well versed in the yogic tradition and, together with M, we did an 8 week qigong teacher training course with the venerable Shifu Yan Lei at the Shaolin Temple in London. In a marketplace that's already saturated with yoga teachers, I thought, what better way to distinguish myself than by fusing together the two ancient healing traditions? Unfortunately (or fortunately, however you wish to look at it), not one student passed the qigong teacher training course as the Shifu (master) quite rightly has high standards. The Shifu's exacting standards is in welcome opposition to the yoga teacher training industry which churns out 'qualified' teachers to the rhythm of a cash register. My cynicism aside, it's now clear that my yoga teaching ambitions are wholly premature. I started doing yoga at age 28, and thought I wanted to become a teacher after only my second session on the mat. If I am to pursue this path, I see myself completing the teacher training when I'm more wised up and have meditated more, or at least after I've actually made it to India ;-)

So where am I two years after my departure from the bricks and mortar of office work? Perhaps to your disappointment, I have no fast answer to offer. But that's life isn't it? I am still feeling my way to the holy grail of “growing a vocation”, as Roman Krznaric says in his excellent little book How To Find Fulfilling Work (more on this below). 

In fact, this post was prompted by an existential crisis I had on the eve of my 30^th birthday in which I again sunk into a black hole of uncertainty and insecurity. After my stint with the children, I'd considered doing further study, thinking that this would open up even more avenues of possible pursuits. But then I realised that my existential confusion actually stems from the fact that I have too many options! This is compounded by the fact that I live in a city where almost anything is possible. (I'm aware that I'm making a first world complaint. Please don't hate me.) Why shouldn't I become a circus freak, a busker, a surgeon, a fire breather, a pastry chef, a kayak instructor, a reiki master...? The plethora of possibilities is like a spinning hall of mirrors atop a carousel. So the questions are what possibilities are aligned to my 'True North' and what are mere distractions? How can I pick out the melodies from the white noise?

This little crisis of confidence was precipitated by my feeling that I was running out of time. Social convention almost everywhere in the world expects a 30-year-old to be sure of herself, if not well into in a career already. And then there is the not-too-trivial question of bearing children. Argh! I kept thinking how both my parents and M only have so much patience while they wait for me to pull the rabbit out of the hat.

So here I am reliving my life from 2 years ago. Stumped and frustrated. During the darkest hours, I even began questioning whether this whole YOLO business isn't just pie-in-the-sky entertained by a privileged few, with no grounding in hard economic reality. Thankfully I had the sense to snuff out this flicker of doubt as soon as it emerged with the more compelling, eternal question: Why settle for less by taking any old job that fritters away your gifts and passions only so that you can live for the weekends and the next holiday or save for a future that may never come – in the way you expect? I reminded myself that I did not decide to set sail onto the high seas of possibility, negotiating currents and rips at the edge of my comfort zone, only to return to the land of lost opportunities. No siree!

After I regained some balance from this existential wobble, it occurred to me that while I still can't answer the question “What do you do?” with an answer that will placate the person asking it, one important fact that sets me apart from my self of 2 years ago is that I am a lot wiser.

So wise in fact that while reading Krznaric's book How To Find Fulfilling Work, I kept thinking: “Well, this is nice. Why didn't I write this book myself?” Everything Krznaric mentions in it are thoughts that I independently arrived at through my own soul searching. But before I go on to highlight a selection of points of concurrence with Krznaric, I'd like to share the greatest lesson of all from my soul voyage.

Life evolves, culturally, historically as well as biologically. So rather than deny it, deal with it! The ancient Greeks and Buddhists were really onto something and yet we forget this wisdom in our bid for security and predictability. But to wish to stand still against the winds of change brings with it all sorts of problems. These are nowhere more evident than in the employment industry. People who once thought they had jobs for life are now dispensable. If their jobs haven't already been shipped off to the developing world, they are probably in line to be usurped by uber-diligent robots who don't require sick leave and pension schemes. People whose skill sets have fallen behind the curve of innovation and global trends are also finding themselves knocked off their perch of security. Schools in the UK are only beginning to wake up to this fact by making computer programming a core subject. 

Nothing stands still, least of all in the prevailing capitalistic system whose evolution runs on 'creative destruction'. There is absolutely no controlling the future. The individuals who will thrive are those who are best at adapting to change.

As individuals, we all age and our mindsets and circumstances change accordingly. The aspirations we have when we are 25 may very well be different from those we have when we are 45. So why should we be expected to apply ourselves in the same ways across the decades, not least in terms of work?

Like Ken Robinson and other progressive thinkers, I blame our education system for perpetuating the cultural myth of a career for life. The school system in the UK is set up to shoehorn 16 and 18 year olds into professions before they are mature enough to understand what it is that they will want to be doing 5 years hence. Heck, research has shown that our brains don't fully mature until we are 25, let alone 18 when we are expected to choose law or psychology or fine arts. I'm doubly glad that I didn't spend 6 years in medical school, incurring a crippling amount of debt while at it, only to graduate without a wish to practise medicine. For this, I have my parents to thank. They encouraged me to get a general humanities degree because they prized a 'broad' education that would give me 'options'. But while my degree qualified me for almost no job in an economy that prizes specialisation, it gave my mind an ample amount of flexibility on how to think and negotiate my way around the world. Despite the ups and downs I've experienced for not having a set career plan, I wouldn't have it any other way.

Now for some wisdom gleaned from Roman Krznaric's book that I happen to have thought up independently. (I'm still patting myself on the back for this).

Striving for the good life is a moral enterprise

Unless you're unfortunate enough to be living in a subsistence economy, society in much of the West has been moving away from a kind of grin-and-bear-it serfdom towards what Krznaric calls the 'Age of Fulfilment'. This idea of 'fulfilment through work' actually stems from the advent of individualism in Renaissance Europe, the poster child of a person so fulfilled was Leonardo Da Vinci. In other words, the ideal is not a new one. Only that Western culture moved backwards with the advent of the industrial era. Workers were treated like cogs in a machine, beavering away in their silos, doing the same old backbreaking labour for 14 hours a day only to line the pockets of a new ruling class.

According to Krznaric, more than half of the working population in Europe and the US consider their jobs unfulfilling probably for similar reasons as our Victorian ancestors. But even without such stats, it is apparent that in a place like London, people are starting to wake up to the fact that being stuck in a job that might pay well but makes one miserable and therefore more likely to engage in addictive behaviours (from impulse shopping to binge drinking) just isn't good enough anymore. It's neither good for the individual nor for a society made up of miserable self-medicating individuals. Working for money and status is the new form of enslavement. The more money you earn, the more money you'll want so you have to work harder to attain it. It is what Martin Seligman calls the 'hedonistic treadmill'. There is no end game to the rat race unless you walk the plank.

Albert Camus reminds us that “Without work, all life goes rotten, but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.”

Our multiple selves need multiple outlets

One of the legacies of the Victorian era has been the invention of job specialisation via the division of labour for the greater efficiency of the capitalistic machine. It therefore denies that each and every human being has a range of talents and even 'multiple selves'. Again, Leonardo Da Vinci is the archetypal example of what happens when you allow the marriage of multiple talents and passions with work. He is what Krznaric calls a “wide achiever” who did many things at once, rather than sticking to one specialism. He was variously an artist, inventor, a scientist, a musician and a philosopher.

Like so many of us, I was conditioned to think that the 'correct' way to live is to work my way up the ladder in one profession, one that you can identify your being with at cocktail parties (I'm an anaesthetist, I'm a human rights lawyer). And yet, since I took my soul on a voyage, I have been meeting people almost on a daily basis who are X-cum-Y-cum-Z types. Needless to say, they tend to be of the creative ilk – the artist-cum-barista-cum-yoga teacher or the burlesque dancer-cum-social enterpriser. I find my belly fires up every time I talk to people about their hyphenated careers whereas those who yarn about their standard singular vocations – filmmaker, musician and author, excepting – leave me cold. (And that's why I don't go to cocktail parties anymore.) 

Krznaric's talk about being a “serial specialist” is also comforting. A person may not have three jobs on the go, but as life evolves, he trades one career for another as his needs and aspirations change. Krznaric writes about a woman who started out as an aerospace engineer for NASA only to retrain as an urban planner when one day she found herself rather riled up by a badly planned patch of American suburbia. Another woman was doing fabulously as a dotcom engineer for Sony when she began moonlighting for a independent media company that helps Palestinians get online and create news. This awoke her humanitarian streak, and she duly quit her high paying IT job in California, downscaled to a bedsit back in her native Ireland and set up her own magazine that focussed on changing the ruinous thinking that led to the Celtic financial bubble. She has since worked in various posts on sustainable economics and development.

Krznaric himself has variously been a telephone salesman, an academic and journalist, a community worker, a tennis coach, a self-employed gardener and carer for his twins.

As for me looking back over the last decade, I am proud to announce that I have been a fundraiser for Greenpeace, a staff writer for a magazine, a freelance blogger, a special needs assistant, an assistant Chinese martial arts teacher, a mentor to children and the elderly... If I may say so myself, my work history shows that I have at least lived a little, and that I have made a difference in a small way. And it's only just the beginning!

Doing more than one thing also gives you an insurance policy against changing economic tides. What's that proverb about not putting all your eggs in one basket? If your day job as a librarian gets automated, at least you still have your guitar making business to fall back on...

When I was telling a good friend of mine about Krznaric's book, she aptly said: “It's no longer about having a career, but about having projects.” Well said, my friend :-)

What makes a job meaningful? Money isn't it.

Krznaric talks about three important characteristics of meaningful jobs; ideally, a job will be a blend of all three. These are: 1) doing a job that gains you respect (because its worthwhile), 2) doing something that will make a difference (the ethical career) and 3) doing something that indulges your passions and uses your talents. On the first characteristic, Krznaric writes about a man in Australia who worked in refrigeration and then, quite accidentally, became an embalmer when he discovered a buried passion for embalming (no pun intended). The kind of respect he gained was from the relatives of the deceased who saw the care he took to give the deceased their last bit of dignity. Another (more obvious) example of a profession that gains one a lot of respect is fighting fires.

At the moment, I can see myself doing something that aims to make a positive difference to others (hence all the dilly dallying with children) as well as one that cultivates my passions and talents. I clearly find I express myself best and most creatively with my writing, and yet, I also have a musical talent that has lain dormant for the better part of a decade. I recently started teaching myself the classical guitar and, in less than a week, I have learned an entire exercise that is part of the ABRSM Grade 4 syllabus. M has given me the idea of uploading my progress weekly on this blog. Watch this space!

What makes a job fulfilling?

Krznaric says that ideally it's a job that has meaning (see above), gives one flow (the giddy feeling of being so engaged in the task at hand that time stops), and freedom (whether that is being your own boss or having the time to be creative). For some people, a fulfilling job can be cleaning office buildings (Ken Robinson talks about a woman who gets flow from doing just this in his recent book Finding Your Element) while for others, it can be planting and harvesting kola nuts. One should never judge nor should they. Happiness is truly the greatest measure of success no matter what you do.

Act now, reflect later

It's what Da Vinci called discepolo di esperienza or being a disciple of choice. This is the subject of Krznaric's book that interests me most because it so faithfully mirrors my own approach to finding my way. When I quit my job in 2012, I wasted no time in plunging myself into various projects and causes. I sidestepped career advisors and dubious personality tests for what really counts: experience. How otherwise can you know whether you will like or dislike doing something if you've never tried it? As Krznaric puts it, you can't know what it's like being a carpenter just by reading a book about the profession. By way of example, he tells the story of a Belgian woman who, for her 30^th birthday, gave herself a year to try out 30 different jobs. While supporting herself part-time as a freelance events manager (the profession in which she felt she had reached a dead end), she shadowed and volunteered in widely different vocations: from fashion photography to bed-and-breakfast review writing to running a cat hotel.

For understandable reasons, most people contemplating a career change will want to think hard and plan their move before taking the leap. But Krznaric says:

“The problem with the 'plan then implement' model is simple: it rarely works. What generally happens is that we find ourselves in new jobs that don't suit us, because we haven't had any experience of what they are like in reality... Alternatively, we spend so much time trying to work out what the perfect career would be, ceaselessly researching or getting lost in confused thoughts about the best option, that we end up doing nothing, overwhelmed by fears and procrastination trapped by the paradox of choice...”

Ah, the bane of having too much choice. This is where the 'reflecting' part of the 'Act now, reflect later' equation comes in. Lest we become like the greedy monkey who tries to grab a handful of peanuts out the jar and then gets his hand stuck, it's important after one has experimented with different jobs to take a step back and evaluate the fruits of one's exploration. For some people, like myself, this might include seriously narrowing down the field of possibility to prevent paralysis by the “paradox of choice”. After some reflection it occurred to me that I am drawn to creative and community work, and so I should keep my explorations within these admittedly broad perimeters. 

While not everyone will have the luxury to quit their jobs and take a year out to volunteer and shadow in alternative industries, Krznaric counsels that one can either build branching projects – that is, test the waters by moonlighting in work unrelated to your 9-to-5 – or get talking to people who are already doing what they may want to do and learning about what these professions are like on a day-to-day basis.

In fact talking to people in fields unrelated to yours is a big part of changing careers. If you're a lawyer wishing to leave the law and you continue to associate only with lawyers, you're pretty much blinding yourself to what's 'out there'.

Krznaric says: “As I know from my own experience, our worldview is a psychological straitjacket that restricts us from pursuing new possibilities.”

In the last 2 years, I have talked to a wide variety of people who are doing things that I could imagine myself doing. I have met actors, film makers, yoga teachers, nutritionists, writers, freelance designers, special needs teachers, musicians, cafe owners, criminal lawyers, psychotherapists, life coaches... Even if the perfect vocation doesn't present itself from such conversations, there's plenty of inspiration to be gained from just getting to know how other people live and how unconventional life can get. Importantly, opening up my social circle has taught me that I'm not alone in wanting a meaningful life.

Finding a vocation is like finding true love or is it?

This is where Krznaric and I depart – at first blush.

I always thought that finding the right vocation is a bit like finding love. The 30 jobs-a-year experiment resembles speed dating. The existential angst of not having 'found' the perfect career is of the type I had when I thought I'd never find him.

But Krznaric says that, actually, one doesn't 'find' the perfect vocation like a proverbial needle in the haystack.

“There is a widespread – and mistaken – assumption that a vocation usually comes to people in a flash of enlightenment or moment of epiphany. We're lying in bed and suddenly we know exactly what we're supposed to do with our life. It's as if the voice of God has called to us: 'Go forth and write Chinese-cookery books!... It's an enticing thought, which, in effect, takes the responsibility away from us: someone or something will tell us what to do with our lives.”

Rather, the perfect vocation is something that one grows and grows into by having an overarching goal or purpose.

“A vocation is a career that not only gives you fulfillment – meaning, flow, freedom – but that also has a definitive goal or clear purpose to strive for attached to it, which drives your life and motivates you to get up in the morning.”

In a sense, this concurs with what my friend said about having projects, which are by nature goal-driven, rather than a career. One sets out to build something or to get better at something or to discover something, whether that is building a school, becoming an ace guitarist or discovering a cure for lupus.

Aristotle, as ever, is wise on the matter: every person should have “some object for the good life to aim at... with reference to which he will then do all his acts, since not to have one's life organized in view of some end is a mark of much folly.”

And from the other end of the philosophical spectrum we have Friedrich Nietzsche who wrote: “He who has a why to live for can bear with almost any how.”

While the idea of 'growing a vocation' might lack the romantic spark of having a 'calling' or 'destiny', Krznaric assures those of us who are still at a loose end that “You shouldn't worry at all if you don't feel you have a vocation... while they are relatively rare, with the right approach it is quite possible for a vocation to emerge in your life.”

The "right approach" being to start acting now (Just do it!) and to do so with an undying self-belief. Marie Curie wrote of her philosophy of work: “We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something, and that this thing, at whatever cost, must be attained.”

The bottom line is that a vocation - and greater purpose - will not emerge in your life if you cling on to a way of life that is well passed its sell-by date because you lack self-belief. No matter what everyone else says, your life is yours to live and... YOLO!

I just want to thank all the friends and family who have supported me on my journey thus far. I couldn't have kept calm and carried on without you!

Watch this space for the next instalment of the voyages of my soul.