No one needs to ask to be special, we just are.
For a long time I had a hard time facing the reality of myself and who I was.
Being the person who always felt outside, or being the one who was constantly counting her own movements in her head, even though I know there's no machine keeping score of anyone's thoughts, mine included. I would still feel it anyway.
When I was young I didn't notice how different I was, inside and outside. Having a scholarship at my private school didn't help either. I was ignorant to all of that reality, which I must say thanks to my parents on this one, and I would just find myself doing things, despite it being clearly weird to everyone around me.
In my teens I had to face something else, that I wasn't someone people naturally "liked" or accepted, and I had to find a way to make peace with that so I could still do the things I was meant to do or at least felt so.
Things like getting on dating apps despite what others would think, at 15 years old, and meeting the person who is still my partner today, together more than 12 years now. Later, at university, it looked like walking away from what a newcomer was supposed to do, the veteran students wanted us drinking and skipping class and I would still go to class anyway.
None of these moments needed me to say out loud that I was different. The actions made the whole claim by themselves.
Why it Matters
Knowledge is power, and understanding is everything we should be chasing.
It's what lets us move through this chaotic world with more presence, and more patience toward other people and toward ourselves.
Right now we're living inside a society that's desperate about self identity.
People obsessed with announcing what they are and what they stand for, their pronouns, how they want to be addressed, how they want to be seen, how beautiful and successful they are, and making sure you know it.
There's actual research behind why this feels so necessary to the people doing it. People from cultures built around proving a unique self show real, measurable anxiety making choices, even small ones, even alone, because every choice quietly becomes an act of self-definition. It's exhausting and it was built to be.
That's because in this model the self isn't something you already have, it's something you have to keep proving through what you choose. A small decision, what to wear, what to order, isn't just a preference anymore, it's evidence being submitted about who you are.
Get it wrong, and it says something about you, not just about the choice.
Source: Kitayama, S., Snibbe, A. C., Markus, H. R., & Suzuki, T. (2004). "Is There Any 'Free' Choice? Self and Dissonance in Two Cultures." Psychological Science, 15(8), 527 to 533. PubMed
Many other places this isn't even a problem, and in reality, it's easy to see why it doesn't have to be this hard.
In cultures across all over Asia, which are more oriented around duty than around rights this entire problem barely exists.
Nobody needs to ask permission to be different, because different was never the point. The attitude is closer to,
Of course I'm different, why would I make a big deal out of that?
You can't control how anyone else reacts to what you are anyway, so there's nothing to prove them. Even something like caring for an aging parent doesn't need to be dressed up as some grand expression of your inner nature to count. You just do it, because it's what you do.
That's not a smaller way to live. It's a lighter one.
Identity Crises
So if you ever find yourself in one of those spirals about identifying yourself, or caught up in the whole conversation around pronouns and self-labeling, remember this:
No one needs to ask to be special. We just do it. We just like what we like and dislike what we dislike.
People will ALWAYS expect some version of you, X, Y, Z, the entire alphabet, and it was never only about your identity or your self image to begin with.
Some of what feels like your unshakeable "true self" might just be old patterns you picked up a long time ago and kept repeating, not some fixed essence you're required to protect.
Even the feeling of being one solid "you" watching your life happen from behind your own eyes might not be as fixed as it feels. You're allowed to take yourself a little less seriously than you've been taught to.
A Less Hyped Approach
The biggest gift I ever gave myself, and by extension the people around me, in my early years, was learning the default setting of society and just letting it be, accepting things as they are.
And I don't mean that as conformism, doing what's expected of you because it's expected.
I mean acceptance, and acceptance is different. It's making peace with life being the way it is, and if you decide to go against the tide, that's your choice, do it, but don't expect to be rewarded or accepted for it.
Why would you even consider that approach?
First, there's peace of mind.
When we come from a place of understanding, we come from a place of abundance. We are who we are, and we are unique simply by being unique, nobody has to force anyone else to agree with that or claim the same thing about us. They get to be exactly who they are too. Accepting myself was never a demand for anyone else to accept it the same way.
I'm not saying any of this is fair, or nice, or easy. I'm saying it's the first step toward finding a place of feeling enough, and happy, without needing to prove the world wrong.
References
Big Think, "What Is the 'Self'? The 3 Layers of Your Identity," featuring Sam Harris, Mark Epstein and others.
Kitayama, S., Snibbe, A. C., Markus, H. R., & Suzuki, T. (2004). "Is There Any 'Free' Choice? Self and Dissonance in Two Cultures." Psychological Science, 15(8), 527 to 533. PubMed.
