Today about 16-50% of the American population are consider Introverts.  These Introverts included many people such as Barack Obama and Oprah. Despite this many people seem to not understand introverts or their personality and tend to criticize them.   I identify as an introvert, and I am pretty comfortable with it.  Of course that isn’t always the case.  I have been called lazy and shy numerous of times just because my personality does not fit or go with other people's personality.  It seems that with every clashing personality traits there are like, Extroverts vs Introverts, Unemotional vs emotional, or even skeptical vs gullible, someone is being put down. We can’t really chose our personality and because of that people should judge some based on their personality.

When people make fun of or judge someone based on certain personality traits is makes society extremely intolerant.  Judging someone because they don’t fit into a certain “bubble” just tells us that if you are different then something is wrong with you.  Being intolerant won’t help us advanced as a society at all.  Throughout history being intolerant just creates wars and hatred.  When people can’t accept that others are different, they just want to put them down hoping they would just go away or fade into nothingness.  But when you are being put down this can lead to a numerous of things liked feeling pressure to fit in, or think that something is wrong with you. I have had this happen to me many times.  Before I knew exactly what introverts was I had thought that something was wrong with me.  I didn’t understand why I had trouble being in large social situations or why I enjoyed the company of myself rather than others.  The only thing in my life I wanted to do was to prove that I could interact and be social on a 24/7 bases.  Of course this was not the right way to go about things and I just found myself trying to change to fit others standards.  This is the last thing we as a society should want to do.  When you criticize others you just hurt their feelings and make them feel as if they need to change themselves.  No one should change themselves just for other people's sake.

When people bring up personality criticism, there are many excuses made about it.  The main one that I hear all the time is that is just life.  In life people are mean and make fun or criticize others for things they can’t change.  When I hear this I immediately think of the age old phrase, “Boys will be boys.” or “Girls will be Girls.”   The problem with this is that it puts people into a stereotypically bubble.  It is saying that people are automatically going to be mean to people who aren’t like them.  That there is no way for two people with conflicting personality traits to ever get along or at least tolerate each other.  The truth is that there are many people who get along just fine with others who are on the opposite side of the spectrum.  They don’t care if they act differently because they understand that people are different.  Some people use the excuse that people just don’t understand each other's differences.  But not understanding is not a valid reason to hate on someone.  If you don’t understand someone’s personality then use that as a learning opportunity! Go and make an effort to know that person.  Become their friend or even an acquaintance.  Just try to understand, and if you still are confused then that is just fine.  At least you made an effort, and with that effort you just might become a more tolerant person.

No one should ever judge or criticize a person based off of their personality. We as a society must educate each other of the many different and clashing personality types, and by doing so we just might become a more tolerant nation.