A reflection inspired by Brené Brown’s perspective on belonging.
The opposite of belonging isn’t isolation, it’s fitting in.
One more time – the opposite of belonging is fitting in.
Some of us spend so much of our lives comparing ourselves to others, then thinking the solution to our differences is to fit in – to squeeze our square peg into the round hole that is the embodiment of the “like everybody else” mindset. When we finally do fit in, we realize the immense isolation that this “other group” presents us with because it will never provide a deep sense of belonging. So if we aim to fit in yet never find belonging, where then do we seek it?
The first step to belonging is belonging to yourself. Being true to yourself and your truths. Vulnerability comes only from this place and from this place comes a sense of belonging with others.
Don’t aim to fit in, aim to belong. There is a huge difference. You can belong to people who understand the sacredness of their own belonging and see yours as sacred. The mutual understanding of the other allows for us to be truly ourselves and thus belong. Fitting in implies that I am manipulating myself into a preconceived space set up for me to maintain the arrangement of someone else’s constructed space.
Never fit in. Belong.
The man in the arena
It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.
Theodore Roosevelt