For many years the college that my sister attended had a billboard with the quote, “Stand out, fit in” displayed in large letter across the front of it. My best friend and I use to laugh at that billboard every time we passed it, we thought it was their way of attracting “weird” or “odd” students.

Now though I know that is not what they were doing, they were attracting the students that were not afraid to be themselves. They were creating a space where people did not have to feel the social pressure to fit in but instead gave them a place where they could belong.

In our society today we put a larger importance on being able to fit in and follow the status quo than being our true selves. We either admire people and envy those with the courage to be authentically themselves or we think they are weird and odd because they typically do not follow the status quo.

Most of us go through our lives trying to avoid being labeled as these undesirable traits because we are social creatures and want to feel like we belong to a pack. We fear the loneliness that being an outsider can bring and this fear causes us to mistake the difference between fitting in and belonging.

Today we place a higher value on receiving acceptance from other than we do on forming acceptance for ourselves because we think that by fitting in and receiving acceptance from our peers that it will lead us to have a sense of belonging. So we wear the clothes that are considered trendy, we do the extracurriculars that are considered cool, and we follow the social norms that will hopefully lead our ideal group to like us.

We place all our time and effort thinking about what we need to do in order to accepted because we are convinced that the more people that we achieve acceptance from the stronger our feelings of belonging will grow. There is no better way gain that acceptance than by following social norms. When we are so focused on only doing the things that will gain us social acceptance we end up losing sight of the things that our inner self is drawn to.

The problem is the further and further, we move away from being our true authentic selves in order to be accepted by others the less we tend to feel like we belong in the group because our initial desires, actions, or feelings do not align at all with the people’s around us.

So even when we are in a room with 100 people and doing and saying everything to make us fit in and be accepted we can still feel alone because we still do not feel like we would be accepted if we did or said the things that we wanted to.

So instead of looking like we are on the outside, it may look like we fit in internally you do not and that will still lead to you feel like an outsider and don’t belong.

It is time for us to stop mixing up fitting in with belonging. Instead of thinking that to feel part of something we first need to be accepted by others we need to learn to accept ourselves, live authentically, and form relationships withthe people that come into our lives pursue our passions.

These relationships that are made not by behaving artificially but by behaving authentically they are going to lead you to fill your life with people that you feel you belong with and that is what is going to lead you to feeling like you fit in, not the other way around.