Rejection.
Rejection makes a weirdo because every time he tries to come in and join the cool kids, he’s pushed out. Every time he is pushed out, he makes adjustments to better fit in so that next time he is welcomed with open arms. Unfortunately for the weirdo, he is only pushed out again and again. He keeps making adjustments, whether or not those changes make any difference at all is beyond him. He has just come to believe that who he is at that very moment is not enough to be invited into the club. So he tries to get in. Gets pushed out. Tries to get in again. Gets pushed out again.
Here’s the thing, every single time he is pushed out, he is being pushed exponentially further. And the fact of the matter is that trying to get in is a losing game because every passing second that this weirdo spends alone and outside of the group, the group is moving further along, sharing more experiences that further secure their bond, which create a bigger gap between them and the weirdo. And every passing second that he spends alone, he is also encountering experiences that further secure his identity that is unique and special from the group.
Try this enough times and one day, he will have made it once again through the arduous journey of trying to get into this one exclusive group he’s been working toward his entire life only to find that as he raises his fist to knock the door… His hands become weak. He doesn’t want to knock at all. He takes a step back, gets a good look at himself. He realizes he’s created an incredibly unique self in all the time he’s spent trying to be part of this group that never wanted him in the first place.
That’s what makes a weirdo. Someone with his own unique experiences, experiences that you would never understand. And with these experiences are his different ways of looking at the world. And perhaps, you, as the cool kid, never wanted him in the first place because you knew that it would jeopardize the group identity. You were afraid that this exclusive group of yours would come crashing down. The weirdo is the oddball, the odd man out; the weirdo is the one that thinks differently. The weirdo is the one who thinks so differently that by rejecting him enough times, you have given him the gift of venturing on his own journey and becoming his own unrelenting true self.
Because he has no other choice.
What difference would it make to try and change himself again? What difference has it made? None. The weirdo thinks to himself. He’s been rejected his entire life. So much to the point where the pain of trying to fit into the mold of another man is no longer worth the potential joys it may reap. And so he stops. He reaches an epiphany and decides to never turn back and to keep going forward, forging his own path, a path that no one has ever been before.
A weirdo.
If there’s one thing that I’ve noticed among the greats, the revolutionaries, the ones that really make a dent in the universe, is that they themselves were often the oddball. They were the ones that weren’t good enough. The ones that were never meant to amount to anything. But not unlike a butterfly struggling to get out of its cocoon, the weirdo, the rejected, takes this struggle as an opportunity to strengthen itself. So much to the point that one day he could fly.
Albert Einstein, Walt Disney, Thomas Edison, even the Beatles. These people were never meant to make it, but to everyone’s surprise, they rose above and created a legacy of their own. All because they were rejected.
If you’ve been called a weirdo, or a freak, don’t waste your time trying to fit in and be like everyone else. If anything, it’s a blessing in disguise, a struggle that you were meant to surpass in order to allow yourself the opportunity of maturing into the unique individual that you are.
This one’s for the weirdos.
by Jason Lam