When I was around 16 years old, I had had enough of popularity contests, cliques, fashion show-offs, and the backstabbing adolescent status quo. By the time I finished up my sophmore year of high school, I had decided I didn’t care anymore what people thought of me. I had been the target of ridicule and inside (and outside) jokes for so long, that I no longer cared if anyone at all wanted to be my friend. I didn’t care what people thought of my wardrobe, my taste in music or my hairstyle. I sincerely detached, not out of self-pity or some dark, victimized despair. I literally woke up one day and realized I was spinning my wheels, going against the grain. I had to stop trying to please everyone. I realized that by trying so hard to live up to people’s expectation of me, my whole life had become essentially contrived. I longed to finally live sincerely for myself and didn’t want to turn my back anymore to what I personally enjoyed as fun, funny, interesting or uplifting. This included my taste in movies, books, music, clothes and spirituality.
The oddest thing happened once I suddenly decided to stop going along to get along. People began saying hello to me in the hallway, laughing at my wit, asking me to hang out, sit with them at lunch, go to parties, carpool. My decision to stop caring had backfired and I quickly developed a broad social circle of girls and guys from every walk of life, popular and not, who didn’t seem to care whether I cared or not.
A dear friend once told me that people are like magnets. If you push against the pole of one and it repels, it doesn’t matter how hard or how long you push, you will never connect. If you turn around and walk in the other direction though, you’ll find that magnetic forces from every direction will come crashing up against your back, practically begging for your attention.
For a long time now… several years actually… I have been allowing myself to feel let down by my family, friends, coworkers and neighbors. They say things and do things that leave me feeling anxious, unappreciated, unheard, unloved. I just realized today that I’m falling into that old, recognizable pattern. I need to stop trying so hard to be everything to everyone. Stop being a people pleaser and just be myself. Live. Laugh. Love. Just like it says on my bathroom wall.
I can hear people whispering when I walk by sometimes… amusing themselves at my expense… just like when I was 16 years old… and you know what? For too long now I’ve been letting them get to me. Wishing they would try to get to know the real me – how much I long to be understood. Then suddenly it all strikes me as meaningless and prideful. I need to flip the switch again.
The less I try to fit in, the happier we’ll all be.
Happy Rebirth Day!