Are we really different?

Are we really different?

I got a friend who suffers from social anxiety.

As I am concerned, I would say that most of us suffer of social anxiety at a different level, but my friend’s anxiety is enough strong to stop him from leaving his house.

One day over a coffee I asked him: “What are you afraid of”?

– “People’s judgement”.

My first thought was “Well, everyone judges, and so do you. What is the problem”?

I asked him: “What kind of judgement”?

– “That my body is not great enough”.

His answer remembered me a quote hear a year ago:

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“Everyone wants to look like a top model. The thing is that there is 7.3 billions of people, and only 5 top models.”

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My friend’s story is not different from another story… In fact, most of us are uncomfortable in our body, trying to reach the 0,000000068% people’s look, instead of loving the body that is truly ours. My friend transforms this desire into anxiety, but other will compensate with food (or absence of), clothes, fashion, drugs…

My first post was about taking baby steps to lower expectations, allowing our self to succeed. This is exactly the same point here: why do we always want to look like this 0,000000068% people? Do we really have true chances to succeed or are we just thriving for the moon?

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How can we ever reach our goal when we make this goal almost unreachable?

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It is funny how half the people seek to be “different”, when the second half tries to be “like others”, but that only an infinite part of us accepts to be ourselves…

We all have different faces, which make us different from others, but also similar to others; EVERYONE has a different face (even real twins are not completely identical)! Are we then different from others or the same within our differences?

Sometimes I’m thinking about these movies showing the “Future”, a future where everything is sanitized, where everyone wears the same clothes, eat the same food, follow the same yellow lines in the same walls… and I’m thinking about how boring it would be…

Because as frightening difference can be, it allows:

– beauty (we all like different things about others);
– desire (we usually desire things we don’t have);
– opportunities (different needs to be fulfilled);
– learning (variety of ways to do one same thing);
– etc.

And all these differences make the world a better place to live, with more possibilities to express, evolve, create; be ourselves.

On another hand, similarities bring order and easier paths. They bring habits and rules helping us to move forward as a society instead of lonely individuals. They create a context where individual can connect on same bases and build together in the same direction. They facilitate comprehension of others’ needs and expectations.

At the end, when you realize that we ALL are different from others, you realize that we ALL are similar too!

The real difference is how you manage this. Are you waiting for that “same-difference” to run your life, waiting for others to set the path so you can “differentiate” or “identify” yourself, or do you listen to yourself, allowing you to be as you are, as different and similar to others you can be? The world always changes; if you determine your place regarding world’s path, chances are you will always be readjusting your path, instead of living your own life as it should be: for yourself and yourself only.

This said, I am not saying that we should not care about others at all, but at the end, our life is own, and we should be the only one driving the car to reach our true destination, and no one else’s.

As I am concerned,

I am different of others through my body, mind, emotions and experiences
And I am also like others thanks to my body, mind, emotions and experiences
I accept these two parts of me as my whole me.

And you?