The Loss of Individuality
Losing your Individuality.
Where does this come from, how does it happen and how do you know when you’ve got it back. All three questions seem to be more difficult to answer than most. As we don’t keep track of these things, they just happen over time… it’s difficult to know when you’ve succumb to the average and to those around you when you don’t improve all the time, or reach outside your comfort zone. This could be seen as conformity vs individuality both compromise of self.
When conformity is looked at from one angle, it is simply defined as the act of matching attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors to group norms, politics or being like-minded. Norms are implicit, specific rules, shared by a group of individuals that guide their interactions with others. Which in specific terms meaning not having a sense of individualism to stand out from the crowd. To give up in your own thinking and becoming like another in order to be like-minded. To say you’ve become a sheep is kind of layered to be true. So why did I bring this up, this is because as humans, we are social creatures with hierarchies in the local system that happen automatically… I mean no one is at fault for becoming someone they don’t want to be, when it’s the crowd they’re with. Fitting into a special crowd where you don’t have to conform and keep your individuality is a lot rarer than you think… the act of being accepted and not tested for your beliefs is something that is hardly felt anymore. We all want to be heard and seen.
Individuality is harder to accept when you aren’t allowed to accept yourself, by looking at social barriers we can see that there’s conflict just by being a specific type of person, at the most natural form extroverts and introverts, sure they can be friends, many people are, but there are barriers that allow them to go on for only so long without realizing pressures on a more intimate level. We lose it as soon as we are in a crowd, I remember watching my baby cousin on the playground with friends quickly adapt his mannerisms to the other kids alike.
I guess it all starts the same, when in primary school we have a group of friends where we need to wear certain clothes to belong with them or need to play a certain sport have a certain mark on our report cards to keep u with the rest. Isolation is not the answer, but mere acceptance of our own likes and dislikes should set us apart from others. As soon as we are forced to do something that conflicts our feelings is the start of losing our individuality.
To acquire a sense of belonging is more important that having in your mind the “right” thoughts and being wrong to others when it could compromise happiness from being in the group. I mean who truly wants to be alone in today’s age just because they are different to peers, I mean, I certainly don’t. I am different by all means and I find comfort in knowing I am me and take a piece of everyone else as I move along my journey through time to see what else and who else I can become. Now, don’t take it the wrong way in me saying I steal a piece of someone’s heart just by being with them, no… I am rather saying through connections we develop something from another person’s characteristics or mannerisms, but through this knowing whom oneself is, is more important.
How does one even begin to think about accepting themselves when we lie to ourselves and others… See, what this creates is saying that the other person is more important than us. And yes lying to ourselves is the same thing, as well as when we don’t speak u when we have an opinion. Fixing it has to be the best part of this process through realizing our mortality. One we do that we see it’s not worth our time to be someone else when we are perfect people in ourselves. Why would we spend this one life being like someone else, being a part of that other group that we don’t belong in because we are fearful to be alone? We are all made out of what the stars are made out of, the biggest mountains, the toughest lions and the cutest kittens!
