Tell us about a time when you felt out of place.
I can't really tell you about any one time that I felt "in place" lol. A sense of belonging is a huge part of the human condition, I'm glad that I wasn't around during the caveman era, feeling out of place as often as I did as a youngster, I would have been devoured by man or beast. I wonder if that is the origin of the need to feel that one belongs to some type of group. You see this need at very young ages, they call it socialization, but in some situations it can become almost tribal in school settings. Once kids get to high school, as we have seen lately, it can get fairly brutal and Darwinian, the ultimate survival of the socially fittest.
I am still curious how those popular girls know that they are the ones, they seem born with that sense that they are to be the leaders of the social pack. I am not saying that I was a follower, I wasn't, but I wasn't one that belonged, I didn't know where or with whom I belonged. High school was not enjoyable socially, intellectually it was, I was very lucky that my parents sent me to a very good school. I was prepared for college and I didn't feel too overwhelmed by the transition from high school to higher learning.
Nowadays, I don't experience any of those fears of not belonging, I may not belong but I don't care. What they say about feeling more comfortable in your own skin and also no longer caring what others think after a certain age really does come true. I think that it takes a bit of life experience and observations to discover that everything that you thought in high school was wrong, not everyone is looking at you, fear dominates most people, you are seriously never the only one feeling the way that you do and when things aren't going well, it's okay because that only means that you haven't reached the end yet. Everything works out in the end.
I think that the only way that you can ever be out of place is if you believe that you are out of place. I'm pretty sure that life is all about perception from within and without. If you perceive and project a certain something, a certain "je ne sais quoi" others will generally follow along.
These are my initial thoughts on this subject and in the immortal words of Forrest Gump "that's all I'm going to say about that"
laurieanichols 