"Just Be Yourself," And Other Such Bad Advice.
We all heard it from our parents, "just be your self." be it the first day of school or your first date this advise haunted all of us. This is nearly impossible because either we don't know who we are, or worse, we do.
Unless you were fortunate beyond fortunate to be instantly liked and accepted your entire life and adored by everyone you probably put some effort in to acceptance. No before this begins storing up ammo for your own blogger rant keep in mind that I know that it was only a select few who strived for popularity. But we all wanted to be accepted, it's always an ironic truth that the members of the chess club were more accepted among their friends than you were among yours. Day to day you knew there were things you couldn't say, and stuff you couldn't do. If you were in the popular set you had to conform to popular trend, if you were in the punk set you couldn't idealize NSYNC. Even the nonconformists had to conform to the nonconformist lifestyle, thank you Hot Topic. There were even the poor bastards who couldn't even fit in with the outcasts, these people were exiles. Exiles could never really fit into one single group, not because they went well everyone, it's because they were just different enough not to fit in.
Our differences make us unique, but they don't make us special. When you stand alone you are alone, and when you conform you sacrifice your individuality. The the advise given by our parents should be phrased closer to "put your best foot forward and be likeable." but even that's incorrect in it's own way. All in all I suppose the reason for the "be your self" advise is because your mom thinks you're cool, and she's the only one.
Exile
Original_exile@hotmail.com
Unless you were fortunate beyond fortunate to be instantly liked and accepted your entire life and adored by everyone you probably put some effort in to acceptance. No before this begins storing up ammo for your own blogger rant keep in mind that I know that it was only a select few who strived for popularity. But we all wanted to be accepted, it's always an ironic truth that the members of the chess club were more accepted among their friends than you were among yours. Day to day you knew there were things you couldn't say, and stuff you couldn't do. If you were in the popular set you had to conform to popular trend, if you were in the punk set you couldn't idealize NSYNC. Even the nonconformists had to conform to the nonconformist lifestyle, thank you Hot Topic. There were even the poor bastards who couldn't even fit in with the outcasts, these people were exiles. Exiles could never really fit into one single group, not because they went well everyone, it's because they were just different enough not to fit in.
Our differences make us unique, but they don't make us special. When you stand alone you are alone, and when you conform you sacrifice your individuality. The the advise given by our parents should be phrased closer to "put your best foot forward and be likeable." but even that's incorrect in it's own way. All in all I suppose the reason for the "be your self" advise is because your mom thinks you're cool, and she's the only one.
Exile
Original_exile@hotmail.com
posted by exile at
11/18/2004 02:48:00 PM
1 Comments:
I think it depends on what you want. Some people look down upon the concept of "fitting in". Some people strive to shoot for the proverbial moon of popularity, and others just don't care.
The truth is if your friends are only friends because you conform to a certain system, then they aren't really your friends, are they?
I'm not saying it's best to be alone, but I would hope that people would not sacrifice individual thoughts and ideas merely for the sake of making friends.
And as far the comment about 'ammo for your own blogger rant', I had written something similar awhile ago. Read here
By
Bitter Sweet, at Saturday, November 20, 2004 7:29:00 AM
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