What’s Wrong With Being Different?
In the Merriam-Webster dictionary different is:-
Definition of different
partly or totally unlike in nature, form, or quality : DISSIMILAR could hardly be more different
For this particular human being, different made me stand out. And someone who was different, who didn’t want to stand out, did her very best to be Invisible at the best of times.
Yet I wanted so much to fit in. But when I fitted in I didn’t like who I was, who I became. I didn’t FEEL right on the inside.
At school to fit in with the popular kids I followed what they did, they would gossip. Gossip isn’t very nice in my book. In Merriam-Webster it’s pretty much the same:-
Definition of gossip
a person who habitually reveals personal or sensational facts about others the worst gossip in town
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be totally educational!
Gossip can hurt people. Gossip is invariably carried out by people who are hurting. Hurt people hurt others. Sad people make others sad. You get the picture here, yes?
DO YOU HAVE ANYTHING NICE TO SAY?
So I would partake in gossip along with the others. Only it made me feel awful. I’m of the mind that if you haven’t got anything nice to say then you shouldn’t say it at all.
Many would argue that point. Humans are entitled to their opinions. We can’t ALL go around being nicey nice now can we?
Or CAN we?
Why not be fricking different?
Why not stand out from the crowd?
Why not do things differently?
I started to be more mindful about what I was saying and doing. Or let’s use another word more conscious of what I was saying and doing.
The other “weirdo” kids at school who got picked on I had real compassion for, because I was picked on. I was physically and mentally bullied throughout high school but back then (heck I sound old) you just shut up and put up.
I became even more different. I seemed to attract those other kids that were deemed “weirdos” by the popular kids. I don’t know how or why but we came together collectively and between us did things a bit differently.
Over time I realized being different was actually a force for good, for change. Took me a while to see it like that because I was living in the “poor me” victim state of mind.
Who were you at school? A popular human, or deemed the geeky weird human? A gossipy human, or a compassionate human?
Ironically, it was my quietness, my reservedness, my calmness, my differentness that attracted the popular humans because they could confide in me knowing it wouldn’t go any further.
CAN’T PUT MY FINGER ON IT
This still puzzles me today. How, if I wasn’t the popular, fit in type, did I attract the popular humans? It came about by accident. I saw one of the popular girls one day sat on her heels against the wall of the science block, out of view of others so she thought.
I stood looking at her and could see she was shaking. She was crying, really heartfelt sobbing. I wasn’t sure if I should go over and talk to her after all she’d made my life a misery for the last 6 months. But my heart went out to her. For all that she’d done to me I’d always thought there was a driving force behind it but I didn’t know what.
So I walked over and sat next to her, saying nothing. After a while she stopped crying and looked at me with a look of disdain, like I was something stuck to her shoe. All I said was “if you want to talk, I’ll listen, no agenda”. She looked me in the eye and I thought I was about to get a mouthful when she said “why would you do that?” I smiled and said, “you’re hurting, something is making you hurt so bad, nobody should feel hurt like this whatever it is”.
Her whole body sagged even lower to the ground and she opened up. Her parents were going through an acrimonious divorce, she said her home life felt like a battleground. Her older brother had just been cautioned for drugs and her beloved dog had been diagnosed with a terminal illness.
This had been going on for the last 9 months and her way of dealing with her pain and anguish was to take it out on others. Her life was hell as she saw it, so she made sure someone else’s life was hell. Namely mine. Then she said something to me that left me a little bemused.
“I don’t know what it is about you but there’s something different about you”.
She hasn’t been the first one to say this to me. My dance tutor said it to me and as a geeky 15 year old with some issues it freaked me out. After all I didn’t want to be different.
My first boss said something similar “you’re different for some reason”. My third boss said the same thing to the extent I followed him to his subsequent new job as his PA after helping him write his resume and accompanying letters. Obviously I had to apply for the PA role, I didn’t just walk into it and I was interviewed by someone different funnily enough.
The most recent time I was told I was different was when I trained as a Pilates Instructor. When I was freaking out about whether I could really teach, when I was freaking out over the anatomy and physiology and seemingly being incapable of remembering muscle names and locations my trainer said “if I thought you weren’t capable I’d tell you. You’ve got something different about you that works, go with it”.
What was it that was different about me?
Was it because I was a listener?
Was it because I cared?
Was it because I seemed to understand and connect on a deep level?
Beats me. I’ve decided I don’t need to know. If the answer comes to me then I’ll have been enlightened. For the time being I’ll accept I’m different because it does seem to work.
WEIRD TRUCE
As for the high school bully? She softened a bit. Not much, just enough to let up and not give me such a hard time. She had to show face in her group after all.
On her own she would pass me and smile. We seemed to have a weird understanding between us. She had confided in me, given her trust in me yet she’d been so vile to me but I couldn’t stand to see another human hurting so much.
Ironically she sent a couple of her friends my way. All I did was to listen. No agenda. If it helped them then it was good in my book.
HISTORY REPEATING
I remember driving my son home one day from high school and he launched into a tirade of why he was deemed different to everyone else. I had to smile. Oh please, history repeating itself? Surely not. I looked at him sat next to me in the car and I told him my story of being different. Then he said something that made me smile even more he said “Mom one of the tutors said there was something about me he couldn’t put a finger on but I was different in a good way”. He learned to take it on board and has been comfortable with it ever since.
So if you want to work with someone who does things differently come and join the conversation. I don’t give out homework, worksheets, etc. I don’t tell you what to do – When you talk you will be heard. No agenda.