Transcending the Culture of Acceptance

Let me tell you something about myself. I never had a large number of friends, even now, they are far and few between—especially with the pandemic; most are on Discord. Simply put, I’ve never really been one who was able to fit in with the rest of society. 

I remember in my first year of high school, during the lunch breaks, I had nothing better to do than to walk the halls or take a stroll around the neighborhood. Fast forward a few years into 9th grade—after episodes of frequent loneliness—I started to make progress in getting accepted by others, but it was never meant to be. In fact, I soon realized that I was better off without their acceptance.

In this post, I’ll explain the three things I’ve learned about societies: 1) how they function, 2) why they stigmatize you for not meeting their standards and why you must not try to seek their approval, and 3) why you must create your own standards.

How Society Works

Let us start with societies first: what they are and how they work. Society, in essence, is a machine, and we are its components. For this machine to run smoothly, it must set standards like laws and norms to determine what is and is not acceptable. When the people of society adhere to the standards, it prevents society from falling apart. 

Thus in order to ensure that it stays together, we use stigmatization and praise to make sure that the people conform to the standards that glue society together. Anyone who does not meet these standards is essentially considered “useless to society.” 

Believe it or not, this is actually a good thing. 

For those of you who have experienced loneliness as I have, you may be scratching your head reading this. Perhaps you are thinking to yourself “why on Earth is it a good thing to be made an outcast?” If you told me this even just a few years ago, I would’ve said the same.

Let me explain.

Why Society Stigmatizes You

Society needs useful members to keep it running. Those who cannot (and/or refuse to) be used—the outcasts, outlaws, rebellions, and recluses—are of no use to society; they don’t fit the standard. 

Discriminating against them is one way to keep them out while at the same time discouraging those who are useful to not deviate from the standard. Why? Because it is in the interest of society to keep track of who is useful and who is not. 

They only accept and tolerate us as long as society can function when we are a part of it. When society finds itself unable to survive when the standard shifts again, that’s when we find ourselves again discriminated against, stigmatized, and ostracized.

So, when people stigmatize you for not meeting society’s standards or when they praise you for meeting it well, they’re doing this for their own sake. Not yours.

The Great Tragedy of Seeking Approval

What living through years of solitude has made me realize is this: when others stigmatize you, when you choose not to conform, you counter the very societal standards that they depend on.

So many people see the words, “you are of no use to society” as an insult, and those who do are the same people who want to be validated by the society that insults them.

But so many of us want to be accepted by others. It’s in our human nature. It isn’t even so much the fact that we are stigmatized, rather, it’s that we seek to end the stigmatization given unto us by trying to fit into a standardized definition of what is good for society.

What even is society’s definition of good? Hint: it is whatever is useful to the majority, not the outsiders.

The great tragedy of seeking approval is not so much that society disregards the worth of certain people based on how much they can be used, but that the so-called “useless” fail to define their worth by their own standards.

Create Your Own Standard

If you’re reading this, did you really make it this far in life…just to win their approval? The only thing that accomplishes is hurting yourself by unknowingly seeking to become dependent on a society that depends on how useful you are. 

What I would instead suggest is that you seek to transcend society and their self-serving standards. Move away from the noise and focus on yourself. That’s what we’re all about here at LYFE: Living Your Fullest Every Day.

For whoever transcends society is someone who transcends the standards of society, thus making themselves free to live by their own standards.

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The key is to focus instead on creating your own standard to live by: a standard of your own free will away from the judgement of others, one that goes beyond the societal metric of self-worth. In other words, you have to transcend society.

This means first abandoning the culture and society that you have grown up with, and then going on to creating a more individualistic life, or the other way around, which is usually easier. When you do this, culture and collective ethos is abandoned and replaced with an individual character, one that is personal. 

To negate is to rebel, to rebel is to seek freedom, and when one stops his rebellion and tends to what he has newly created instead of his connection with the old that he sought to destroy, then one has transcended society.

The only standard I like is the one where I am at the top, and that can only be done if I create the standard… and I shall. Will you?

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This post is a revised version of another post written by the author. It can be found here.