Fitting into a One-Size Only Box

Growing up they teach you what society expects of you in order to please its hungry needs. “Don’t be who you are but rather be who we tell you to be.” They teach you how to shapeshift so you can constantly get the widespread approval that most human beings long for. It’s a one-size only box, and it’s so sad. There is an unbearable amount of pressure put on young girls and boys to limit themselves to their most concise version possible. Nobody is given permission to express themselves in their entirety, as that defies the unwritten rules of our society. And as a result, many people end up living sad and miserable lives because they spent their whole life trying to a fit into a box they were never created for in the first place. I used to think like this. I used to try and squeeze myself into this one-size only box. Until I decided to revolt. And it’s the best thing I have ever done.

How does society handle a person who doesn’t wish to compress themselves to the most ‘suitable’ form for other people to digest? It usually mocks that person, tries to shame them, makes sniggering comments in hopes that they will change, or any other foul thing along those lines. When people generally encounter something they are unfamiliar with, their first reaction is negative. And funnily enough, I’m not simply talking about people who obsess over traditional standards and values and shame more modern ones. I’m actually talking about everyone. Because everyone likes to shame this way of thinking that they have apparently broken apart from, but then they just become it in other ways themselves. The liberals are just conservatives with different values.

I spent most of my life trying to be what everybody else expected of me – as a daughter, as a student, as a Christian, as a woman, as a black person, as an African.. need I go on? I tried to fit into all of these boxes. It seems that there are boxes created for every single category there is out there, and they only fit a certain kind. So people spend their lives trying to lose weight to fit into them, instead of just tearing them apart. The ‘weight’ we usually lose is sometimes in the form of certain personality traits, maybe certain fashion choices, perhaps even our conduct and behaviour. It’s different for everyone. I want to ask you a question – what’s your weight? What parts of you have you dropped off for the sake of those around you? What parts of you have you put to the side so you can be more palatable, more easily understood, and generally more ‘comfortable’ for people to be around?

A weight is usually something you would love and embrace about yourself if only society didn’t tell you not to. I found that my weight for much of my life was my love for Jesus. Another weight was aspects of my personality that other people used to find discomfort with, such as my hyper moods, the way I laugh, or my general unpredictability. For much of my life I suppressed these parts of me because it triggered something in others that they did not like. And it took me many years until I understood what that thing was.

People will often tell you to lose your weight only because they felt forced to lose theirs. And so you must suffer, too. People are intimidated when they see somebody being who they never thought they themselves could be. They feel threatened by authentic people, because there is a fear within them of showing their own true authentic self. So they project. “You’re not allowed to express yourself fully if I can’t” is usually the thought process behind it. Many people do things like this from a place of fear. A fear of other people having negative opinions on them, and so they project that same fear onto you. The thing about people who have caused themselves to fit into the box is that they want to force everybody else to get inside too. Simply because they themselves are too afraid to just get up and escape.

This is why you can’t let people’s opinions of you control you. It’s why you can’t allow yourself to be compressed for the sake of others. Sometimes those ‘others’ aren’t just friends, by the way. Sometimes it’s your family, or your parents, or your teachers, or even those you look up to. Society doesn’t attack from one angle, it comes from them all.

But when you realise these things, rather than simply storing this information in your amygdala, do something. Get up and revolt. Tear that box to pieces and go and discover who you truly are. I am not saying take a trip to Africa so you can “find yourself” (shade fully intended). I’m saying get up and find out what you have been suppressing about your personality your whole life and do something about it. Ask yourself who would you be if you had zero fear and work towards being that person.

Now, self-expression is different from defending parts of you that you know aren’t right, under the excuse of ‘being yourself’. Self-expression isn’t actually tied up in what you do, but rather in who you are. I know these often get tied up with one another but it is important to know the difference. Your identity is not wrapped up in your choices.

So, to you who has been living in that box. To you who has been in that career that you know you’ve hated for years. To you who is in that relationship that suffocates you for air. To you who is still in that friendship group that doesn’t allow you to be truly who you are. Get up and go. Break out of that box, and just freaking live.