Everybody can relate to wanting to fit in with a certain group or a certain person at least once in their life. It's hard when there are certain standards that others expect you to meet just so you can be classified as "popular". I am very guilty of trying to change myself to fit into the mold of what other people want me to be. I always used to ditch my real friends the second somebody that had never spoken to me came along, and that's probably some of the biggest regrets I have. I still care about being "part of the group" every so often, but I have people in my life that reassure me that I am enough.
A prime example of people going to the extremes to make people like them is the children's book "A Bad Case of Stripes" by David Shannon. I was actually performing this book for speech and debate when I got the idea to write this article. In this book poor literally Camila Cream wakes up with stripes all over her body. It is addressed at the very beginning of the book that she loves lima beans. She never ate them though because everybody else's hated lima beans and she just wanted to fit in. Little did she know, the cure for her stripes was Lima beans! This story shows that you don't have to sacrifice who you are for the sake of other people.
Which leads to my next point of toxic people in your life. I have, and have had many toxic people involved in my life. Some of them live to tear me down, while some of them just convince me that I'm worthless. Many people have experienced toxic friendships/relationships in their lives. Just the fact that they don't accept you makes you want to make them like you. And that's something really hard to deal with. I still haven't gotten rid of toxic people in my life for the sake of other friendships. What I am learning though, is to keep them from getting to me.
At the end of the day, the most important thing that needs to be remembered is that you don't need a group of people to say how good they think you are. You don't need a bunch of "friends" telling you what you should change so they'll stay by your side. All you need to know is that there are people there to support you that love you no matter who you are. You are enough.
