We all want to stick out of the croud. Do something extreme. Write a famous article. Have our name recognized.

Why?

If society is all about wanting to fit in – then why do we also strive for attention?

It comes with wanting to be liked and be seen as ‘cool’. In your High School years, being cool meant being like everyone else. Sticking out in any way that wasn’t a ‘cooler’ alternation of the norm was seen as weird. Or, if you were to do something silly, it would only be a SLIGHT variation of the norm. You would never stick out too much. Behold the below example:

This is what a member of the flock, a “regular person” would pose like when asked to pull a ‘silly face’:

“Heheheh I’m sooooo silly and ugly what funny poses.”

No. In reality, this is what a ‘silly face’ looks like:

I’m sexy and I know it.

I guess it all comes down to wanting to be liked. To be seen as attractive.

But what about those people who do stuff TOTALLY contrary to the norm yet still seem so cool?..:

CONFIDENCE is key – it establishes an abnormal act as ‘cool’, and not ‘lame’.

If you are being picked on for something, the best thing to do is to embrace the thing that is being picked on. If YOU find it cool, then no-one will bully you for it. They won’t get anything out of it since you don’t give them a reaction – their teasing has no effect on you.

Another example is a person wearing one of these:

She doesn’t seem to give a F!

If you were to walk around with one of these, head hunched over, paranoid that everyone is staring at you (they are), and generally embarrassed – then people around you will judge you negatively. On the contrary, if you were to “strut your stuff” while wearing this, head held high, raindrops flying everywhere – people would find you bad-ass. Your own attitude determines what other people think of you. Body language displays more than you would think.

“Nonconformity for the sake of nonconformity is a type of conformity”.

There are also people who conciously derive from the flock out of protest. This is also bad. You should not act a certain way/do something simply because you want to be different. Doing this, you are not being yourself – merely doing something specifically to be unique.

However, decidingly doing something different just for the sake of it does have its perks when it comes to personal development. Being unique in a ‘negative’ way will attractive judgemental attention, and having to embrace the stares with confidence is a challenge. This is why I once went clubbing in gym clothes.

It’s strange how we live in a society where we all want to be apart of the group, yet we still strive for uniqueness. We want attention, but doing something different to the crowd in order to gain that attention is a risk. You are either admired or looked down for it. Again, this is where confidence comes in. If you don’t care that you made an awkward joke, or slipped, or did something slightly silly that still makes you want to die on the spot, then no-one else will care either. And even if they do laugh at you, you will be so mentally tough that you will not care what they think. With confidence, you always win regardless of the reaction you get from around you.

We are one out of seven billion.

I guess we do feel the need to act special and differentiate ourselves from everyone else. It is a scary thought that we as individuals are essentially insignificant. However, I think we should embrace this fact. If nothing you do matters in the big picture, then there is inherently nothing stopping you from doing what YOU want. Freedom is attained once you have escaped the bubble of needing to be ‘liked’.

Conclusion? Dress the way YOU want. Do the activites that YOU want. Don’t follow norms just because they are there, and do not stick out just for the sake of it.