Fitting in and Being Liked
Fitting in and being liked are not all that important when all is said and done.
Throughout my teen years and well into my thirties, I really wanted to fit in. Not necessarily in the grand scheme of society – but within the structures that I spent time in.
Before high school, I spent my formative years as an outsider. I was the odd, fat, short Jewish kid from the single-parent home in our very Lutheran Midwest suburban neighborhood. In the Jewish community, I was from the only single-parent family (at the time) and didn’t fit in there, either.
These experiences influenced my actions into college and through my mid-thirties. To make up for being the odd-man-out and how lonely that made me feel – I put almost all my focus and attention into my social life.
This, in turn, led me to not make other choices. I gave so much attention to fitting in and being liked within my social circles that I did not pursue a real career path for myself. I bounced between jobs, homes, and relationships to continue to fit in and work on being liked.
The worst thing that came of this was that I lost perspective. Specifically, I lost perspective about myself. I was so caught up in fitting in and being liked that beneath the masks I put on the substance was lacking.
That, of course, would contribute greatly to my self-esteem issues and fear of abandonment. So of course, this made me somewhat neurotic, high-strung, and not at all calm nor Zen.
Eventually, I thoroughly disliked myself. Returning to therapy and actively working to get to know me, however, changed everything.
The beginnings of mindfulness work
Why do I share the ideas that I do? How come I’ve been writing about conscious reality creation and mindfulness all these years? Why do I work so hard to find and/or create positivity?
Because I needed and still need to be aware of and accountable for these things. For too much of my life, I have not been mindful, conscious of the reality I lived in or would like to create, nor been positive.
Every summer, before the pandemic canceled it for the last two years, I have attended an enormous medieval reenactment event. It draws over 10,000 people to it for 2 weeks every August. It has been something of the crown jewel of the social life I put so much of my energy into for fitting in and being liked.
This event has been so important to me that in my mid-twenties I once left a job so I could attend it.
To be fair, I love this event. The time with friends and being social has been a great experience for me. But when it was more important than other aspects of my life, this was unhealthy.
It came to this because I did not know myself. All I knew was the person I pretended to be so that I was fitting in and being liked.
After my first full experience of conscious reality creation and focused mindfulness – to recover from being hit by a car while crossing a street – I started to realize who I believed myself to be is important.
Who you think you are matters
For a long time, I thought I was a screw-up. A weird guy who had no career goal or focus, never settled, sucked at relationships, and wasn’t worth any effort – save fitting in and being liked. If the shoe fit to that end, I wore it.
But I lost myself in that shuffle. It wasn’t until I started therapy in my mid-thirties that I came to grips with this.
I did some things to be accepted by others that were not true to me. I dumbed myself down, denied my passions, acted as the clown, and presented as the butt of the joke – or in my friends’ vernacular the center of the circle – to fit in and be liked.
Ironically, there was one person who didn’t like me that I was ignoring. Me.
I didn’t think that who I thought I was mattered as much as who others thought I was. So, I wore the masks to be likable and desired among other people.
Thinking little of myself, however, took a heavy toll. I got out of shape mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I was erratic, constantly depressed, felt lost, and didn’t like who I’d become.
Therapy and antidepressants helped to get me centered so that I could see this for what it was. And I realized that it mattered as much – if not more – who I thought I was versus how others thought of me.
Then, on my own, practicing mindfulness and working to better know myself helped me think better of myself. And I started to give more attention and energy to fitting in and being liked by me.
Fitting in and being liked within
In the last decade, I’ve worked to change my focus. Rather than being someone that I am not – to be liked and fit in – I’ve been striving to know and be more myself.
What does that mean? It means instead of putting on masks and doing things I think others expect of me – so that they will accept me – I’ve been working on being who I desire to be and being liked by me.
I know a lot of people who do not like who they are. This comes from lots of different places and for many different reasons. But that’s still a struggle they face.
When presented with a choice to act on it, some will choose to see how they are empowered to work to make changes. Others, though, will seek out blame and fault outside of themselves and use that to avoid the choices and decisions to work on themselves.
I am in no way denying that shit happens. Hell, I did not seek to be hit by a car and severely injured when I was in my late twenties. I could have remained the victim of that if I didn’t choose instead to do everything in my power to fix it.
Hence, yeah, I got hurt. But unless I show you my scars you’d never know. I could have been the victim of that accident for the rest of my life. I chose not to be.
While I recognize I have a degree of privilege in my life – the following is still true for everyone: So long as you live you have choices available to you.
Am I still working on fitting in a being liked?
Admittedly, to some degree, yes. And that’s normal.
We are social animals. Human beings – even the most introverted among us – need other human beings. We interact, interconnect, and create social strata with one another.
Some groups are just a pair. Others include hundreds or more. Thus, all of us desire some degree of fitting in and being liked by other people.
But it’s important to be liked and fit in with ourselves. Do you like yourself? Maybe even love yourself? This is not an egotistical question – it’s important to you being genuine about who you are.
When you are you – and know yourself – it’s easier to find where and how you can fit in and be liked. Faking it, in time, will wear away. It’s inevitable. If you pretend to be someone you are not – and it’s someone you’ve no desire to be – the façade will crumble away.
If, however, you pretend to be someone you are working to become – that helps add energy and focus to draw that to you. This is where conscious reality creation comes into play. Mixing in mindfulness and liking yourself can turn the desired reality into actual reality.
I know myself better now than at any time before in my life. I’ve changed and continue to change, grow, and evolve. But as much as I still desire to fit in and be liked – being myself, true and genuine to myself, matters to me more.
When you like me for who I am – the relationship we develop will be honest, sincere, and positive for us both. Together, maybe we fit in by not fitting in and liking ourselves. Tat’s not a bad thing.
What have you done to fit it and be liked and has it been true to you?
This is the four-hundred and ninety-fourth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are ideas for – and my personal experiences with – mindfulness and walking along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Additionally, I desire to empower myself and my readers with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-blog and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. My additional writing, both fiction and non-fiction, are available here.
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