Stand out and be counted

Inspiration comes from various things and it’s not always your usual suppliers. On an episode of Modern Family, the uncle (who is gay) is comforting his step-brother (who is in high school) not to be worried about being considered weird, because he says that when we are younger we always want to fit in; we don’t want to be one of those different people, but when we get older, we want to stand out and be different. That’s when I had an epiphany … ok …not epiphany but I realized that there was so much truth to that.

The last thing you wanted as a school or college student was to stand out from the crowd. Of course, you wanted to be popular and brilliant and famous but only for the right reasons. You didn’t want to be the make-way-there’s-a-geek-coming-through person. No sir, not at all. So you did the best you could to hide your quirks and blend in. You shopped where everyone shopped, ate what everyone ate and talked, spoke, laughed like everyone else.

When we grow older everything changes. Our priorities don’t allow us to conform. As adults, we want to steer clear from the mundane and the common. We learn very quickly that if we want to be something or get anything, we need to sprint ahead; and the only way we can do this is by being different. So, the difference that we tried so hard to camouflage under the guise of conformity in our younger days is the only thing that is going to make us stand out as adults. And just like that, the things you were so ashamed of as a kid becomes your saving grace. It’s ironical then that when we seek to stand out we no longer find the going easy. It’s like we’ve angered the muses that bestowed those gifts to us in the first place. Try as much as you want, seeking them out again is a painstaking process.