Last updated December 21, 1996. It's not a particularly original insight, but I thought it would be a worthy topic of discussion.
People often talk as if shyness is a disease or mental condition that can be cured.
I prefer to think of it as an emotional disability. It's something we are born with and something we carry with us our entire lives. That doesn't sound very hopeful, but I think too many people get obsessed with finding some way of eradicating shyness from their personalities, and in my opinion it's a waste of time. I think we need to separate the basic fact of our shyness from our ability to function in a social environment. Look at one of the most famous shy people of them all, Johnny Carson.