Other essays on this theme

Essay: "Fitting In"

by David Goza
When I was growing up, I always found it difficult to make friends. There was never a real niche I could fit in comfortably. In school, I didn't care for athletics, so I didn't fit in with the "jocks". At the time, I didn't care for drugs, so that left the "freaks" out. I didn't even fit in with the "outcasts" because they were too weird even for me. I was always more comfortable with my books and daydreams.

Once out of high school, I was fairly lost, so I joined the army since I couldn't afford college. Still trying to fit in, I turned into a party animal because I had noticed that when people were drunk or stoned and said something out of the ordinary, hey, blame it on the "mind altering substances".

Being too undisciplined to make a career out of the military, I came out and did odd jobs until I got caught up in this mess. Naturally, the fitting in process started up again. Being "hard as nails" was fairly easy, but ultimately a person gets tired of being lonely. Then I tried the "super friendly" approach. This had the drawback of making too many friends, most of which were broke. Finally, I had enough. I decided to sit back and watch others to see how they fit in with everyone else.

We have so many types of people in these places. We have a war hero. That was Tet, even though he was born in 1978. We have "super Christians" who are so very holy, especially when the church volunteers are women. We have racists, queers, thugs, snitches, and the popular innocent victims of the criminal justice system.

After watching all these different cliques, I came to the conclusion that I didn't really care to fit in at all. We have been blessed (or cursed) with free will. We can use our free will to either be part of the herd, or a trailblazer. We feel safer with the herd instinct, but the trailblazer has the greater rewards. This does not preclude having friends, of course. The upside to this is that people will become your friend for who you are, not from your contributions to the herd. Stop trying to fit in everywhere and you will find that you have fit in naturally.