I’m Not Like Everybody Else

The Kinks: one of my all-time favorite bands. So many great songs, I simply cannot choose just one, but a timeless classic most certainly is “I’m not like everybody else.” The title alone conjures up so much emotion that one has difficulty deciphering what it truly means to them and their individuality.

Of course, anyone that knows other Kinks classics know that this song has more to do with the authors mood disorder and less with how one lives ones life, but one cannot help to be intrigued by how the song relates to them. Everyone likes to think they are different in some way. Everyone wants to think they live their lives differently from the rest. However, like Tyler Durden in the movie Flight Club so eloquently put, “you are not a unique snowflake.”

Think about it for a minute. Do you work for someone else? Do you follow the socially acceptable norms? Do you try to be accepted by others? Do you feel underappreciated when others dismiss your achievements? Do you owe others money? Are your possessions really yours or someone else’s? Do your possessions own you? Are you content with living your life in safety? If you answered yes to any of the above, you are like everybody else.

Mood disorders or any other physiological disorders aside, most choose to live a life in security with little to no detour from others. This unfortunately is a praised and sought after trait. We have all been lead to believe that in order to be successful, one must be like everybody else.

To some extent, people with some mood or physiological disorders have a very sought after trait, individualism. This is not to say having a mental disorder is something one should wish upon himself or herself or someone else for that matter, rather a positive spin on a negative situation. The law of nature and physics proves that for every negative there must be a positive.

The world needs followers. The world needs corporate cubical junkies, the world needs 9 to 5’ers and the world needs the status quo, but the world also needs the rare few that see things differently. In fact, if one were so inclined to review history and see the individuals who changed things, who changed the world in one way or another, one would see a pattern emerge. Those that change things are not like everybody else.

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