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On being different

Everyone has their quirks. Their weird habits. Their weird interests.

Most tend to hide them, somewhat ashamed of admitting to themselves & others that they may be different.

My quirks:

I’ll have a bit of every type of food on my plate with each forkful I’ll count the number of letters in a sentence I just said (whether aloud or in my head) and keep dividing the sentence in half to form mini-sentences or words

What is the point? I’ve got no idea. I just do them. I also suspect everyone else has their own quirks. I’ve also come to the conclusion that there are two groups out there:

  1. There are those that treat them as dirty little secrets
  2. Those who just don’t give a shit.

The latter rightly think there are more important things to worry about than what others think of them eating pizza with a knife & fork.

Like those guys, just learn to embrace your quirks & stop worrying about the opinion of other people. As long as you’re not harming anyone else, more than mildly offending their opinion, then it’s just part of your nature.

You don’t need to tell everyone you meet about your keen interest in Yu-Gi-Oh, or that you still eat plain mayonnaise sandwiches now & again, just don’t worry about letting the cat out the bag.

Celebrate Your Weirdness

The weird habits themselves are not something to celebrate. The thing to celebrate is the individuality that they represent.

Your quirks are a sign that you don’t follow the crowd, that you’re not just faceless, lacking identity, in a mass of humanity.

That you are willing to stand up & do whatever you want to do, to act as you want to.

Also, do you really want to end up being called ‘that nice guy’? Nothing remarkable. Nothing special. Nothing really to say about you. Just ‘that nice guy’.

Nice = boring.

Don’t kid yourselves into thinking otherwise.

Embrace your weirdness & others will too. If you are fine with it, others will be too.

Your Weirdness Provides Strength

It’s a slippery slope if you start worrying too much what others think.

Where does it stop? Do you worry about every action? Everything you say? Constantly on edge in case you slip up?

If you start worrying too much, you’ll live a life racked by anxiety, because you can never please everyone. Someone, somewhere will judge you. Will call you weird. Will disagree.

Life is full of people. And people tend to disagree, to be irrational, to enjoy conflict. It’s a losing race to try & please everyone.

Embrace your weirdness & you’ll find that:

  1. you will find it incredibly liberating to just do what you want
  2. you’ll very quickly find you develop a thick skin to anything thrown your way.

In essence, you’ll start to not give a shit what people think. You’ll stop acting as you think society & those around you want you to. You’ll free yourself from the immense pressure to conform that society — and we — put on ourselves. You’ll start thinking as you want. Doing as you want.

It’s sounds like a small thing, right? Admitting you regularly dance around the house alone?

Once you feel the liberating sensation of not giving a shit, however, you’ll realise it’s not.

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Henry Latham

Henry Latham

Founder, Prod MBA

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