Why are we so obsessed with labels? Why are we so obsessed with fitting into a box? Shouldn’t we be going outside the box, being ourselves? It’s human nature to want to belong to a certain group or community. The feeling of wanting to fit in is so incredibly strong that humans suppress their opinions and emotions even when they are hurting so they’re not different or “kicked out” of a certain group. There are both positives and negatives of fitting in. The age group that is most inclined to desire to be in a clique is teenagers, why?
We tend to look a lot at the public and social negatives of fitting in. Yes, there are a ton of negatives of putting yourself in a box and suppressing your feelings and emotions to have a sense of belonging and a sense of community, however, is that a bad thing? Now, suppressing your emotions and denying your feelings is bad. No good that comes out of it for you or the other thing you’re suppressing your feelings for. Having a sense of community and a sense of belonging, though, is something that we desire because it’s our human nature and comfortable for us, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with being comfortable. Now, we cannot be too comfortable in life because then we will not be taking any risks. There is a limit to how much we should be doing a thing and I think that is something that humans struggle with the most. We never set boundaries for ourselves and others, which leads to good things becoming horrible for us.
Teenagers are in the age group that’s most prone to having the desire to fit in and putting themselves in certain boxes which leads to cliques. A clique can be seen at schools especially. A clique is when there are many different types of groups and each group has a certain thing in common so, for example, there would be the athlete’s clique and the artist’s clique. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with being in those certain groups. However, the problem is there is no balance. What I mean when I say there’s no balance is the fact that we’re not hearing out other people’s opinions that are different from us, which can lead to people being ignorant of other groups.
Teenagers are at the age of exploring and learning about themselves, and, when we find a group or a name that maybe describes us a little bit, it’s like finding gold. Why are we so obsessed? Why is it one of the best feelings in the world to have a label? It’s because we feel like nobody has ever felt our emotions before, even though people have. When you’re a teenager, you’re exploring, and learning, and you are kind of in it alone, and that’s a good thing because you need to learn things on your own. When we find something or someone that feels the same emotions as us, we get excited and happy. Even though people around us are feeling the same emotions, we would never know this because nobody talks to each other about deeper and personal things. Part of being a teenager means you’re uncomfortable talking about your emotions, even when almost everybody around you feels the same thing. Teenagers can think that nobody has the same emotions as them, so when you find someone who feels like you it’s really exciting. It can feel like you’re getting understood when the world is always misunderstanding you.
