Being A Misfit
Ever feel like you don’t fit in?
Welcome to the life of being a creative, outlying, misfit. This is my life and I’m here to walk you through a few of the things I’ve learned about being a creative, outlying, misfit.
Life teaches us many things when we choose to learn. The most important thing I’ve learned life-to-date is that the part of me I used to hate, the part of me that used to take the most punishment from grown ups, is the part of me I’ve learned to love the most. But it’s taken a lifetime to figure this out.
My intention is to assure you that being a creative, outlying, misfit is quite possibly the best thing that could happen in your life. You simply need to understand the power in being a misfit.
When you’re a kid and you’re exceptionally creative, high energy and sense right out of the womb that you’re “not from this place,” you pay a hefty price. If you’re a young, outlying misfit, a true one like me, you’re never really sure what to do about all the scary, crazy humans around you, or the feelings you felt.
You felt and feel more than most. This is part of your lifelong learning; to listen to your feelings carefully. To see the clues and live the life of your dreams, on purpose, really happy, no matter what.
You May Not “Get It” Until Later In Life
Creative, outlying, misfit kids can’t begin to comprehend their feelings until later in life. So you bury them. You are told to be quite, not ask so many questions, sit still, and many other seemingly ridiculous demands. You know that none of these requests make sense. When you dared to question authority you were told, “mind your own business.” And worse.
Do you often think people, places and things are stupid, or slow, and you’re not sure why? It’s because you exist at a different frequency. You are very different. Much like you can’t hear the same sound frequencies a dog hears, normal people can’t think, feel, speak, or act as fast as you can. This is my theory. And most people aren’t stupid, they just seem like it too often.
Creative, outlying, misfit kids act impulsively on feelings, then you learn. What seems normal to you is “impulsive” to others. You get slapped with a label created by an idiot in a pharmaceutical marketing department. He get’s paid to write copy and sell drugs. Back in the day, The Mad Men on Madison Avenue made smoking cigarettes sexy. Remember when doctors showed up in ads to sell cigarettes? Now it’s even worse in ways.
Brilliant, huh? This is how misfits see things; differently than most.
Here’s a great example. Today, we feed kids like me buckets of pills to sit in a box. These are powerful, toxic, prescription drugs that teachers, school administrators, counselors, and psychiatrists peddle as not only necessary, but perfectly safe. Yeah, right.
Do you feed your favorite pet speed and other toxic waste because it wags the furry beast wags his tail or purrs too hard when you come from work?
Here in the now, we are pumping legal speed into our kids and we find this normal.
How did this happen? We allowed it. And we wonder how a massive epidemic of addiction to prescription drugs, heroin and all the other stuff that kills us or ruins families unfolds?
Getting Attention
Creative, outlying misfits often find ways to attract attention. (Like writing this article.) Part of it is the thrill of getting attention, but for most of us it’s about sharing our message, fulfilling our purpose. You need to know and will discover your purpose. All misfits do.
In some cases, the attention you get is extremely positive. But it may not have always been like that. While many creative, outlying misfits doing amazingly good things at a young age, like make it to an Olympic team, or invent Cold Fusion alternative fuel sources in their parents’ basement, many of us do really dumb stuff.
If it’s illegal, dumb stuff, millions of misfits go to jail, hospitals, prisons and morgues. This is the dark side of being a creative, outlying, misfit. Yet, darkness brought me to know my greatest passions. I am forever grateful.
While I made some big blunders as a kid and later in life, mostly I learned to excel at sports like tennis, baseball, ski racing and soccer because that was what I was exposed to. I was a lousy student and my grades revealed it. But I had a great family who always encouraged me and funded my education and activities when they could. Sports became my outlet. Running, pedaling a bicycle, hiking, and just taking a long walk with my cool dog is therapy for me today. Not everyone is so lucky.
The stark contrast to my path are millions of kids and adults who get trapped in abuse, addiction, whether wealthy or poor, loneliness, depression, joblessness, and suicide. I’ve had my share of emotional and psychological setbacks. It’s part of the game. But I got help millions of us will never get. I have family, friends and many resources not available to millions of equally decent people and not of their own fault. People living in darkness have to help themselves, first, if at all possible. We can’t save them until they’re ready, and you’ll only believe this if you’ve tried.
All darkness, trial and error serves as consequence just like the fruit of any labor. This journey is a spiritual warrior’s war to live through the dark times into the light. I love people who trudged and turned their lives around. The people I know now are the most authentic, loving, caring and sharing people I’ve ever met. We need more people who are willing to be aware, share and contribute to the many solutions which begin in our homes, families, schools, sports, social circles and even at work. Anonymous or not, anybody can choose to be an agent of change.
Which Way Do You Go?
There is no “one way” to change, shift or succeed. To find yourself, to get what you want, you trudge. One of your gifts is curiosity; an insatiable yearning to know and do what it takes to get what you want. Use it. Yes, you may still get in plenty of trouble, but you use these lessons to grow and serve. You tend not to repeat your mistakes. Simple, not easy.
The dumbest things I did served me well once I knew how to interpret the lessons learned in the form of consequences. Suffering the consequences for our choices is fundamental, even though we have lost our way in this regard. It seems our trust for anything has disappeared. There seem to be no or fewer consequences for being dishonest, and even breaking the greatest laws in the land, like perjury and treason.
Fear, pain and suffering serve as the best lessons in life. These lessons are mandatory if you want to grow. Learning is earning. Think of the most creative, outlying, misfits on Earth. They transcend normal. They learn and create at hyper speed. Think Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and Maya Angelou to name only a few of the greats. All the most creative, outlying, misfits who change the world for the better feel must feel like misfits, too. But you don’t have to be famous to live being a misfit.
Have you ever done what appeared to be brilliant things at the precise time when the rest of the room, team, company, city, state or nation thought what you did was outrageous? This is more reinforcement to know you are a creative, outlying, misfit. You see what you did as “normal” and the normal people think you’re not normal. This is how you and I end up in some very dark places, hopefully to find the light.
Until later in life it’s impossible for you to develop an awareness of what being different means. The teachers, through admonishing parents, made this clear by asking, “Why can’t Stevie ‘pay attention’ when he’s in class? He has an abundance of energy and constantly interrupts me, seeking the attention of others. He is the class clown and in my opinion, least likely to succeed.”
This is the head trash, crap you and I need to overcome if we are to be true to ourselves. Chop wood. Carry water. It’s part of the deal.
A Friendly Suggestion
Be yourself at all costs. Don’t suppress what you feel, unless it will cause someone pain. We don’t want to hurt other people being who we are. We just want them to get out of our way or on the bus.
If you suppress your innate and often burning desire to be different, to really use and develop your unique gifts, without regard for what seemingly stupid people think, you may die a younger and more painful death. My suggestion is don’t ignore who you really are. There’s a high cost.
I know because I tried resisting. That part of my life always sucked. I didn’t learn to love this misfit part of me until much later. And when I suppressed my misfit nature, like pretending I liked working in my former, day job life, or being normal at family reunions, or being tolerant of the TSA guy torturing me over my shampoo bottle, I got angry and sick.
Being angry is being sick. At times I got really sick because of my choices. I lost my way because when I ignored all the internal signs to “wake up” and “get a grip” on my life, I buried them, deep inside. I wasn’t ready to learn how to find me.
The List
Okay, it’s time to deliver the 15 ways to know you’re a creative, outlying, misfit, and, what to do about it.
- You never have, still don’t, and never will feel normal. Trust me, this is a great thing. Read on.
- You don’t think, speak or act normally. Doing what other people is stupid, clearly. Duh.
- You don’t like being told what to do. It even pisses you off. “What do ya mean take out the trash? Can’t you see I’m saving the world here, stupid?” (See a pattern?)
- You can be really mean sometimes, especially to the people you love the most. Chances are they got in your creative way, told you they don’t trust you, etc. Or asked to borrow something you own.
- You get what you want mostly. You never stop. To you, “no means go.”
- You hate speed limits. They’re stupid, of course. (Hence your driving record.)
- You hate the person who steals your ideas, on purpose, especially if it’s your friend, boss or coworker who gets all the credit. This is because have many great ideas.
- You self medicate or did in the past. You think or thought this is normal. To you, anybody who doesn’t self medicate is clearly, you got it, stupid. You might even lie about sobriety.
- You have always known school is too slow. You’re wondering how the teacher can be so stupid, and it seems nothing taught is or was useful or relevant. As a result, you embrace self learning. If you got an MBA, somebody else paid for it. And you think the dumbing down of America is by design.
- You got in trouble for daydreaming as a kid, then you grew up and were told at work to create, innovate and “think out of the box.” This pissed you off because it is truly stupid. Nobody can argue this irony. Daydreamers are the agents of change. We can save the world!
- You love being alone, even though you depend on others to get stuff done. You can’t be around too many people, too often, for too long or you feel like you need to escape to your “happy place.” Then you do.
- You hate sharing. You could be a firstborn. You say, “Don’t touch my stuff, desk, etc. or I’ll …” And you mean it. There are exceptions to this rule, thank goodness.
- You can’t resist telling the world how you feel, even if it costs you money, time in jail, your career or a major account and you own the business. You’re an artist, an activist, an agent of change whether you know it or not. You give little quarter until you learn compassion.
- You’re unemployable in your own mind, but people probably pay you big bucks for what you know. You have a 1099. You could be brilliant though, and vastly underemployed. Ever meet a mad scientist who was broke and unemployable? It works both ways.
- You’re self employed as a financial adviser, stockbroker, real estate agent, mortgage banker, hedge fund dude, etc. You make 100% of your income from commission, and likely have “multiple streams of income.” Day jobs suck. (And hell yes, you’re focused!)
This Is How You Know
This list is how you know you’re a creative, outlying, misfit. If anything on this list is you, you could be here to save the world. If so, you “get it.” You can relate to what I’ve felt my entire life.
Can you see the blessing in what seemed a curse? If not, keeping challenging, questioning, doing and growing. Learn to be “still” and find your true Self. Listen to your heart, more than your head. If none of this makes sense now, it will later. Trust me.
The only reason you feel so different is you are. The only reason you’re asking all the questions you ask, feeling what you feel so deeply, is your Inner Teacher is screaming at you to do something with your gifts.
Listen! This teacher can be your greatest gift if it’s a voice for positive change. If it’s an ugly voice of darkness, greed, dishonesty, despair, addiction, despair, please get help. We need more good, less evil. Find a coach, mentor or counselor who can help you find your way. Now!
This Is What Living On Purpose Looks Like
In the end, no matter what, you, like all creative, outlying, misfits, will find your way. You will never stop searching, questioning, thinking, acting, and being out of the box. Screw the box of normal. You are here to be yourself.
Once you get your head around your power to change the world, regardless of the pounding you take along the way, you will feel a flow. Think of this flow as a tailwind, like you’re rolling downhill and the road is smooth. There are fewer stupid people in your way. And you are happy. You will experience the Law of Attraction that was all the rage years ago.
Chances are nobody told you this when you were a kid. I do what I do because I know what I know must be shared. I need to give this away, freely. It would be selfish for me to keep my knowledge. In doing this, like thinking and feeling my way through this article, I am at my very best, far from perfect, happier than I ever been and you can get here too. I get to serve others.
I, like you, were taught that our desires are mostly bad. How tragic. There are always at least two points of view. To you and me, desire at it’s best is the source of all creation, not the root of all evil.
Embrace your desires unless they are genuinely evil. Don’t listen to negative naysayers. Move on, quickly. They are not really stupid. They are your guides. Watch, listen and learn from them.
When the grown ups, teachers and friends used to tell you to shut up, or they sent you to sit in the corner of the classroom, told you you were immature, and you lived the same pain all creative, outlying, misfits live, now you know the reason; to listen and learn.
To fulfill your life’s purpose because you have one. You already know this. The most gifted among us learn from these lessons. We align with our purpose. We choose the light over the dark. We get to live the life of our dreams.
Learn to love, grow and serve other people. This feeds your creative power. You feel more and care more than most, for a reason.
Keeping looking in your mirror. Search your heart. This is how to find your way. Dare to be different and embrace your inner, creative, outlying misfit Self.
This is your Higher Self and it is calling you!
If you are truly a creative, outlying, misfit you may be here to save the world.
Please hurry.