The basic human need to be accepted and feel a sense of belonging within a group, community or culture can shape and often cloud our behavior, attitudes and actions. Often, every one of us at some point in our lives will feel the desire to belong to a particular group. Feeling like you do not belong somewhere is a terrible feeling, it feels wrong and it hurts, you can compare it to wearing someone else’s shoes. True belonging only comes when we present ourselves in an authentic way, and are true to ourselves, sometimes our need to belong can cause us to portray ourselves in a way that is dishonest of who we really are, and from personal experience I can attest that fitting in this way can be worse than not fitting it at all.
To begin, let me just say I hate the term “fitting in." In my opinion trying to fit in involves altering yourself some way or another to be similar to the group you’re trying to be a part of. I wish more people would stop trying to fit in when they could truly belong. I have experienced this and witnessed this throughout middle school and high school. You only have three short years in middle school. Sometimes you can spend 90% of that time trying to find where you belong. When you do not belong, you’re considered an outsider. When you feel different from everyone else, it is bad enough, but on top of that in middle school and high school you have other kids now making fun of who you are. When this happens, people sometimes compromise their true values, beliefs and even culture in order to avoid bullying and gain that fabricated sense of belonging. I myself am guilty of compromising who I really was in order to fit in and feel like I belonged.
I grew up in Staten Island New York, when reflecting on my childhood, I cannot recall a time where I struggled to make friends. I even switched from catholic school to public school, and then again from elementary school to middle school, I would be lying if I said ...