I’m very aware I don’t fit in with society. And I don’t want to. If you feel as though you don’t fit anywhere — school, work, family — keep reading. I’m sharing 11 reasons why I don’t fit into the system, and what alternatives you’ve got.
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We live in a complex world. It’s beyond what most people can comprehend, and so most people look away from the depth and the strangeness of our existence.
Not all of us are like the rest
Not everyone looks away. The people who want to know what’s actually going on tend to reach further in life, and they’re usually the ones who end up mentoring other people. If that’s you, it’s worth taking seriously.
Carl Jung was one of those. He had a habit of disappearing from society for stretches at a time — he couldn’t mingle too long with a crowd of unconscious people.
After we’re born we grow up and walk the path we’re told to walk. Without any further direction we follow along neatly with everyone else — right up until something feels off and we can’t quite keep up.
I know exactly why I don’t fit into society. For you, maybe one of the following lands.
11 reasons you’re not fitting in with society
A lot of people feel this way. That’s worth knowing on its own — the experience is far more common than the silence around it suggests.
- You have a deeper sense about life than most people around you.
- You never quite understood why you had to learn what school told you to learn.
- Your childhood taught you things most people learn much later, if at all.
- You don’t “vibe” with most people and you miss having like-minded friends.
- You feel connected to something larger — the universe, or a deeper meaning.
- You feel other people don’t see or understand your qualities.
- You have dreams and visions that school could never help you with.
- You want freedom, and you’d rather build your income from home.
- You feel this isn’t your first time here on earth.
- You see through the political and corporate theatre on this planet.
- The way you think and make choices isn’t common practice.
If you recognise yourself in these, you belong to a group of people who really need to look after their wellbeing cleverly — because you see through a lot of the illusion and the false promises here.
The “wounded healers” with a rough past
You may come from a difficult background — a tiring childhood, where the adults around you are the reason you experience the world the way you do now.
Perhaps you’ve been through things that took your joy, slowed your development, or drained your capacity to keep up. Or maybe you simply don’t fit the traditional route — the career, the success, the life you were told to want. Meaning and joy just aren’t the same things for you as they are for everyone else.
Plenty of people on this earth are built a little differently. Some of us have a stronger connection to life, to nature, to our origins — and a different way of handling the ordinary days.
Which is often why we struggle. That, combined with a childhood that asked too much, or years spent in a school system and then a nine-to-five that never fit.
Maybe you finished your education and couldn’t find work. Or you have work, and you don’t thrive in it, and something is plainly missing.
We’re all different — even the conventional ones
Human beings differ from each other enormously. The problem is that society and its norms aren’t built to adapt to that.
So what are your alternatives, when you don’t fit society but you KNOW you have desires, talents and dreams?
The most important thing to understand is that you are not alone in being different — the outsider, the weird one, the special one, or whatever else people decide you are.
Take Steve Jobs.
He started Apple and became one of the most consequential builders of his generation. What education did he have before founding it?
None. He enrolled, quit after a few months, and spent his time on things that interested him — including a calligraphy class that later shaped how the Mac looked.
What defines you from today onward is decided entirely by what you think of yourself, what you believe is possible, and what you actually choose. If someone tells you otherwise, it’s worth quietly noting how far they’ve got in their own life.
11 alternatives — one for each reason
These correspond to the eleven points above, in the same order.
1. You have a deeper sense about life than most people around you
Keep it. But keep it close until you’ve built a solid foundation of confidence and balance — it’s easy to have it talked out of you before then.
2. You never understood why you had to learn what school told you to learn
That applies to a lot of people. It doesn’t mean you won’t learn — it means you learn what you’re actually drawn to, which is related to who you are rather than to a curriculum.
3. Your childhood taught you things most people learn much later
That’s normal and it’s survivable. Just don’t let it become the reason you never take responsibility for who you want to be next. It explains where you started. It doesn’t get to decide where you finish.
4. You don’t “vibe” with most people and you miss like-minded friends
Good. Keep being who you are, out loud, and cultivate what you’re actually interested in without hiding it. That’s how the right people find you — they can’t if you’re camouflaged.
5. You feel connected to something larger
This is one of your best qualities. Follow it and go deeper into whatever pulls you. Keep doing that long enough and you become the person other people come to.
6. You feel other people don’t see or understand your qualities
This one’s mostly in your hands, and I mean that as good news rather than a telling-off. Most likely you’re broadcasting uncertainty and choosing not to say, show or communicate who you actually want to be. People respond to what you put out. Put out something else.
7. You have dreams and visions school could never help you with
People have been doing this throughout history. Dreamers and builders of your type were never suited to classrooms. Pursue your own learning instead — nearly all of it is available now, much of it free.
8. You want freedom and you’d rather build your income from home
The world has moved a long way in your direction. More people want this every year, it’s easier than it has ever been, and it’s cheap to start. Use the internet and find someone further along to learn from.
9. You feel this isn’t your first time here
A great many people feel the same, and in some cultures it’s simply assumed. There’s nothing unusual about the feeling. What’s unusual is how rarely anyone admits to it.
10. You see through the political and corporate theatre
Seeing it clearly is useful. Living in permanent reaction to it is not — that’s a way of handing your attention to the exact thing you claim to have seen through. Notice it, then put your energy into building something of your own.
11. The way you think and choose isn’t common practice
Then stop measuring it against common practice. Change your focus, get your intentions written down and specific, and find someone to talk it through with. For most people the first real task is simply identifying the goal — and you rarely do that inside your own head.
Free courses and education to get started with
There’s a lot of genuinely good free learning out there. These are the ones worth your time:
| Khan Academy | khanacademy.org |
| edX (Harvard & MIT) | edx.org |
| MIT OpenCourseWare | ocw.mit.edu |
| Coursera | coursera.org |
| Stanford Online | online.stanford.edu |
| Harvard Extension School | extension.harvard.edu |
| Codecademy | codecademy.com |
| Interaction Design Foundation | interaction-design.org |
| Open Culture | openculture.com |
| Skillshare | skillshare.com |
| Udemy | udemy.com |
Don’t underestimate mindset and guidance
We spend a lot of time observing successful and wealthy people from a distance. Some of them are worth following. Plenty aren’t — wealth doesn’t make anyone admirable, and some of the most impressive people you’ll meet are ordinary, honest and hard-working.
Do you think the ones who built something started out holding a bag of money? Mostly not. What they developed was a mindset that made them difficult to stop.
And almost every one of them, when asked, points to a mentor or guide as a significant part of it.
People who achieve remarkable things — your neighbour or a household name — have a way of thinking that doesn’t let them quit. They focus so consistently that the outcome becomes hard to avoid. Are they built differently from you? Do they have a different brain in their head?
Almost certainly not. What they have is the method, plus regular exposure to someone who shows them the way and holds them to finishing.
There’s more
- Success without education — building the life you want outside the system
- How to figure things out — the skill nobody teaches you
Ready to stop drifting and start creating on purpose?
The Reality Shift Template is my free 3-step framework — filter the noise, get clear on who you actually are, and consciously create what comes next. Drop your email and I’ll send it over.