I was watching a YouTuber who was reacting to someone saying, of their child, "she's a non-conformist and that will serve her well in the world", and the reactor was like "yeah, it's great to be a non-conformist, but let's be real, it won't serve you well in the world", and I've been chewing on that ever since.
Like, I do get what he means. People who don't fit in undeniably have it harder than those who do. But at the same time, being a compulsive non-conformist has actually served me pretty well in various ways.
I only had a few friends at school, and never had general popularity, but that meant I never had to deal with all the backbiting and friend group drama that goes with popularity. My friends were also weird, and we valued each other. I'm not saying we never had misunderstandings, but the level of drama I see my more popular nieces dealing with was never a thing for me.
I have always reacted to peer pressure by being contrarian. Yes, that meant I was mocked for years for wearing "virgin socks", that I refused to stop wearing specifically BECAUSE I was mocked, but it also meant that when the peer pressure to do anything on earth but study started to kick in, I did study. And nobody really expected me not to, because I already had that reputation.
In general, being contrarian meant people applied less peer pressure to me (as it was pointless), which removed a lot of obstacles in my young life.
When I became a professional engineer, my contrarian nature became a real strength. I do not find it difficult, in a group of people all thinking one way, to point out when I see a problem. I cannot overstate how valuable that is in engineering. You need to find the problems before they leave the office, and groupthink is the enemy.
I will go along to get along in unimportant things, I'm not abrasive for fun, but when it matters, you're going to hear about it. That absolutely has served me well, and that's not even mentioning the benefits of having an unusual style of thought when it comes to finding solutions to technical problems.
When I worked as a lecturer, again, I didn't conform to workplace norms I saw as stupid. I didn't take marking home. I didn't work unpaid overtime. I didn't accept extra hours on my timetable, or short hours being timetabled for a course (common in colleges, which are highly disorganised). I didn't do meetings at lunch, or lecture over breaks, or lecture right up to the hour.
I told managers when they were wrong and when things needed to change. Now, all this was combined with a respectful tone, diplomatic efforts and otherwise hard and proactive work, but I ended up with a reputation for being honest, hard-working and not being amenable to nonsense, which meant that my word carried weight. If I said something could or couldn't be done, people tended to believe it. It served me well.
Now, just being contrarian for the sake of it, as I was as a teen, doesn't necessarily get you anywhere in the long term, and being all edge and no point will not serve you well in life. People don't like it if you're an arse to them for no reason, and nor should they.
But if you cultivate a practice of being honest, reliable, hardworking, while also being uncompromisingly who you are in the face of pressure to conform, it absolutely will be a strength. It will put roadblocks in a lot of the popular roads in life, but it can also open up other roads that can take you to unexpected places.
I hope someone else who's a bit weird or contrarian, like me, can take comfort in this. Conformity is not the uncomplicated road to success that people often paint it as.
