Is Your Shyness Robbing Your Happiness?

Leave behind your inhibitions and live with confidence.

- Michal Stawicki

Shyness is not just a harmless personality trait; it affects all aspects of life adversely. If you’re shy, you miss many opportunities to find happiness and success, all because you are unable to interact with people easily. Your awkwardness with others, especially those with who you are unfamiliar, costs you greatly. But you no longer need to suffer silently because it is possible to overcome your shyness and reclaim the joy and fulfilment you deserve.

Several years ago, I was heading home from work—a 30-mile commute by train. On the same platform, probably waiting for the same train, were a young woman and her sick son. The boy was maybe three years old, about the same age as my own sons then. His bald head and frightfully thin frame suggested that he likely had cancer. Even the effort of raising a bole of water to his lips caused his hand to tremble. He paused drinking to vomit into a plastic bag. This young child was suffering like I have never suffered in my life. His mother was caring, but firm. She held his head firmly when he vomited to avoid a resulting mess.

My heart sank. I felt bad for them—mother and child both suffering so greatly there on that platform. I wanted so much to talk to the mother, to offer her an encouraging word or a friendly chat to distract her temporarily. I wanted to tell the boy that I had two sons his age and that I thought they could become good friends but… I didn’t. My own shyness prevented me from li ing another’s spirits. I was unable to approach people I didn’t know; I was unable to embrace the vulnerability required to reach out.

I actively talked myself out of trying to offer what I could to them: If you walked up to them, what would you say? That you are sorry for them? Words are cheap. And what have you to offer? Money? You are not rich. Time? You are a nine to five slave. Encouragement? Can you cure the boy?