School Survival


Has school destroyed your creativity and self-confidence? I'm working on a book called Recovering From School, to help you heal the damage caused. Join the Patreon or Newsletter to be notified about updates. Paid Patreon members will get early draft previews, as well as a free digital copy when it's done.


Conformity

by


Why is it that so many people seem to feel this need to be like everyone else? Are they too dumb or too scared to be unique or original?

As soon as we start going to school, we are discouraged from trying to be different. If you bring your lunch in a container with a big smiley face on it, instead of the regular square ones everyone else uses, you're bound to get teased and laughed at. If a child feels creative and colours a picture in by making the grass purple and the sky orange, the teacher will probably say "The grass is green and the sky is blue. Why don't you colour it the same way everyone else does?".

If you don't like the current fashion, you're out of luck. Trying to look different than most people won't get you respect, you'll only get funny looks from passers-by, which is probably why everyone still conforms to wearing the traditional suit and tie to work (how boring).

Ads on TV will tell you what's "hip" to wear, what's accepted to eat and how to eat it, models and celebrity-types will demonstrate how you should walk and how you should look, and if you have your own weird and wonderful ways of doing things, you'd fit in better with some comedy show cause you're a freak. The fact is that everyone HAS and SHOULD HAVE their own weird and wonderful ways of doing things. If we all genuinely were exactly the same, just think how terribly boring life would be! There would be nothing to admire about anyone, and the way it is now, there are very few people really worth admiring. Whoever thinks Britney Spears or whatever-else-famous-actor-thingy is so great, well, I have this to say to you: get a freaking life! :)


Written by:
1 January 2003


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