Social Acceptance or Individual Acceptance

"Social acceptance can be defined as the fact that most people, in order to fit in with others, attempt to look and act like them."

Every individual has his/her own special qualities. The qualities that make them different from others. Their emotions, perspectives, reactions, choices etc. differ from others. But, are all those differences accepted by the so called ‘society’? The answer is NO. How often have we tried to change ourselves so that we can fit in the picture! In order to be accepted and noticed, we’ve altered our traits, totally unaware of the fact that these inherent traits make us stand out from others.

People have their own fixed definitions and examples of fitting into certain categories. For instance, only ‘beautiful’ and ‘attractive’ people appeal one’s eyes, only ‘polite’ individuals are kind hearted, only ‘extroverts’ have emotions and opinions, only ‘elders’ are wise and what not. And everyday, we try so hard to fit into their instances. We cover ourselves with filters, pretend to act gently, go to social events even if we hate being around people, try to hide our negative emotions , follow others’ unnecessary advices even if we don’t agree with them, so that the ‘society’ accepts us.

We’re not less aware of these statements like, only children who get higher grades are intelligent or only those people are successful who have a minimum of six figure income. Or you can’t be a woman and be successful...there are millions of such offending yet accepted statements that we come across in our life. And what do we do about them? We listen, stay shut and just try to implement them even if we don’t accept them.

They say that humans are ‘social animals’. Why not individual animals? Because unless you aren’t social and interacting, you’re not a human. I won’t deny the fact that interacting and communicating is important for development. But, how far do we drag comparatively less social individuals...far to that point where they lose their identity. They let go of their special features. Everytime we let go of our one special characteristic, we’re just encouraging them to accept only one set of qualities. We help them to state the fact that no one else who tried to break these instances is worth accepting. They push an individual to such boundaries where he/she feels completely lost. And if ever they try to change even a bit, they’re scared that people won’t agree with them and neglect them.

We don’t need more years in this society to understand the thing that, people won’t accept change. They won’t accept differences, they won’t accept your choices if you don’t appeal them. And if you try to bring even a slightest change, you’re criticised.

Although, things are changing and people are developing, there’s a long way to ‘individual acceptance’ rather than ‘social acceptance’.