Are you unique or do you conform? We recognize and are taught at a young age that it can be much easier and beneficial to fit in. Nobody picks on you, your parents are happy you’re not getting in trouble, and you don’t stand out as being different.
Parents help mold their kids to fit in and to conform. They tell you, you can’t wear that because it does not look right and you can’t do that because that’s not the way things are done. So we see our kids beginning to conform, not making decisions for themselves but making decisions based on what others think! As a result they do not express their unique talents but rather suppress them to fit in. And so it begins!
If you are doing what it takes to fit in, when can you be yourself and when do you go too far? Do you ever lose sight of who you are in order to be someone who fits in better? Where and when do you draw the line to stop following others in order to belong? Are kids who live this life the ones you read about who got in trouble because they where just following someone else? They are just doing what everyone else is doing!
Adults can also put themselves in embarrassing or bad situations so they can be with the right crowd or they won’t speak up because no one else has (if you are 1st then you stand out - how uncomfortable!). Let’s go to extremes to prove a point. Let’s look at the people form Johannessburg who committed suicide as a group because they where told to or the old lynch mobs who went as a group to hang someone or the mobs who destroyed downtown LA because of a court ruling. What did they all have in common - a leader who started it and followers who needed to belong and needed someone to follow!
What I am saying is it is usually easier to follow the crowd but you can be so much more by going against the norm and being YOU - the genuine you! Thinking for yourself and making your own decisions! Not worrying what the others will think about you but following your core feelings deep in your gut! E.E. Cummings said it well,“The hardest battle in life, is to be nobody but yourself, in a world that is working night and day to make you like everybody else.”
When you lose sight of who you are and the choices you know are right in order to fit in and belong, you then give up on who you are and what you believe in. Is it worth belonging if you have to compromise on your beliefs? Is it worth training your kids to conform if it means hindering who they are? My own best friends, the ones I can always count on, are a result of me being me! As Dr. Suess so profoundly put it, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind.”
Some of the greatest discoveries happened because of individuals who did not go with the crowd but against it. Some of the most famous people in history who have contributed to society where laughed at for being different and not conforming.
People who said the world was not flat but round, people who said the planets did not revolve around the Earth but revolved around the sun instead, or light does not have to come from fire but can come from a thing called a bulb. Of course, let’s not forget our forefathers who rebelled against the British, at the risk of death because of their beliefs and willingness to act against the norm!
I am sure you can come up with many more stories but the fact is we move forward as a society because people stay true to themselves and follow their belief in who they are rather then conform and listen to what they are told they should be. The reality is you feel at peace with yourself when you are not putting on a front but when you are being you!
So the following quote is about being unique and going against the crowd to be all you can be, to put your own mark on this world and to make a difference!
“Kites rise highest against the wind - not with it.” ~ Winston Churchill
Have a great weekend and hears to swimming up stream against the current!!
With Love, Peace and Power,
Ron Dilbert
Single Parent Power, Inc. - “Helping Reconnect Families”
www.SingleParentPower.com
www.SingleParentPower.com/Blog
www.blogtalkradio.com/Single-Parent-Power
rdilbert@SingleParentPower.com
516-355-1552
“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” - Albert Einstein
