I think the reward for conformity is that everyone likes you except yourself. —Rita Mae Brown

I am so over this whole follow the crowd mentality.  We’re not sheep, people.  We have the ability to think for ourselves. We just choose not to do it.  It’s easier to go along with everybody else because if we don’t, people may not like us anymore.  Well boo and hoo to that.  If someone stops caring about you because you are choosing to follow your own path or remain true to yourself, well they weren’t a very good friend to you to begin with.  If I sound a bit heated about this, it’s because I am.  From day 1, we’re encouraged to conform.  As babies and little children we hear that we look just like Auntie So and So, or act just like our dad did at that age.  In elementary school we walk in lines, we sit in rows, we all color this box with that crayon.  The television tells us how to talk what to wear and even what to eat. One day, a sports figure took a knee during the National Anthem to make a point.  Do I agree with what he did?  No.  Do I applaud it?  Yes.  He chose a unique way to protest and get his point across, and that was great, until everybody else started doing it.  It ceases to be effective and have meaning when people are doing it just for the sake of doing it.  Having other people like us is no where near as important as actually liking ourselves.  And how can we like ourselves if we’re just like everybody else.  Slowly but surely, all sense of individuality is being quashed, from our families, from our peers from the media and worse from ourselves.  I challenge everybody to take a good long look in the mirror at the person the are.  Are you happy with who you are, or is something missing?  Are you missing the thing that makes you different?  Did you extinguish the spark of individuality that used to light up your soul?  Find it and do whatever you have to do to bring it back.  Show the world the amazing individual you can be.