The world and humans for students and their parents

Be like everyone else

From the book by Andrey Sokolov and Tatiana Sokolova "The world and humans for students and their parents".

Be like everyone else

We often hear: "Be like everyone else."

What does this phrase really mean? Is it possible to "be like everyone else"? And where will this lead?

To be like everyone else = not to be yourself.

It is impossible to “be like everyone else” and still be yourself. This is a contradiction. Loss of self-identity, loss of my I, my personality.

It is impossible to be like everyone else simply because “everyone” is, in fact, different. It is impossible to be like John, and like Margaret, and like Sam and Aunt Cecile. All people are different. Simultaneous “being like everyone else” does not work even in mental patients with “multiple personalities”. Even with mental illness, the patient “chooses” what kind of person he will be at a particular moment.

So the requirement to “be like everyone else” is a requirement to become at least schizophrenic. More precisely - more schizophrenic than the most severe patient with schizophrenia.

In fact, the real reason for the requirement "to be like everyone else" means "do as I do", "think like me", because "I am right." And to give weight to one's own words, the substitution of "I" for "everything" is used. But this, of course, is a lie and manipulation.

The requirement "to be like everyone else", or rather "be like me", or more precisely "be as I want" - this is a demand for submission, a demand to humiliate your I, relative to some other I.

Those. it's just about power, about domination. A kind of psychological sadism.

A person who accepts the condition "to be like everyone else" is forced to constantly rebuild. To be like "Peter", then like "Maria", then like "mom", like "dad", "grandfather", "grandmother", "teacher", "leader", etc.

Such restructuring is not good for the psyche.

To be yourself is to respect the right of others to “be yourself” too.

While respecting his right to “be himself,” the human also respects the right of others to “be himself”. It does not require anyone to “change” and “become like everyone else”, ie, as we remember, it means “to become like me, convenient to me”. Simply because if a person is himself, if he is self-sufficient, he does not need to demand from others "to be like everyone else," he allows everyone to "be himself."