Birds Of A Feather Flock Together

Lately, I got to thinking about human relationships, people and their social circles. It started with an analysis of my brother, my friends and the various characters in my life in order to understand how we've all come to be ourselves. Despite coming from the same household and upbringing, my brother and I are just so distinctively different from one another in regards to our personality, pattern in life, the way we think and the magnitude of things we want. Due to this, the type of crowd and level of people we could connect with come from two enormously different worlds.

Every person within our social circle regardless of family or friends, represents a part of who we are and fulfils a particular aspect of our life experience. They most often harbour reflections of our character and mentality to varying degrees. Hence, the ability to neutrally judge the personalities and type of people with whom we are most comfortable with could tell us a lot about ourselves. 

Apart from friends and family, the same can be observed in one's choice of existing or prospective romantic partners. After all, people tend to develop relationships with other individuals in possession of a mutual state of mind and thinking. Therefore, take a good analytical look at your friends and partners, what do you see?

With that in mind, there are times where I often silently judge my brother and friends constructively as to the level of romantic partners they go for. Although some of the people in my circle are truly blessed with all the right packages, a kind heart, beautiful personality and great physical appeal, but most often end up with partners who are so much less of what they are in terms of personality, looks, maturity and character sophistication. The only insightful understanding I could formulate out of this scenario is that either their partner in question fulfils another aspect of their personality that may be unconsciously hidden, or all that it truly takes is a genuinely simple heart to mutually find and love another regardless of everything else.

Just last week one of my close friends called to talk about how she still has difficulty finding her niche amongst her colleagues at work. This particular situation at the office inevitably brought back memories of how she effortlessly tried to socially blend into groups during high school, despite having trouble getting a majority of people to relate to her then. Upon hearing this, my heart aches at the sound of her dampened spirit as I similarly recalled my years of consistently feeling the odd one out as I too struggled to find my place. 

College and high school might seem like irrelevantly ludicrous periods to judge one's past in comparison to the present, but they were no doubt truthful miniature versions of our society scaled down into the canteen and classrooms where I first got a taste of where I stood in life among categories of people. From the naturally talented to the determinedly disciplined, the confidently good looking to the inferior, the natively privileged to the diffidently humble, and from the soulfully rich to the shallowly ignorant. Being exposed to a spectrum of personalities, I was able to distinguish the variety of souls, mindsets and level of thinking. It was truly in the presence of others that I not only discovered the quality of the kind of person that I am but also the type I wanted to be for myself.

"Peer pressure is for people who are afraid of their individuality", is a shiveringly accurate statement to address my Achilles' Heel of constantly comparing myself to others. Failure to utilise and acknowledge the positivity of one's individuality among a sea of common people is probably one of life's biggest unrealised potential. Which got me thinking of how impressions of a certain person are more impactful than some others due to the pull of individuality. Even though my unique personality yielded me both sides of a popular social life, the good and the bad, but the strong sense that came with being different certainly scared me and made 'benchmarking myself', 'wanting to fit in' or 'never being good enough' a soul corroding obsession. I consider my social circle a reflection of who I am, therefore the constant re-evaluation of myself and my friends was a theoretical way to help keep me on track with the kind of person I was developing into.

In fact, my unsuccessful attempts in trying to 'be in tune' with certain groups of people then, seems ridiculously silly now due to the realisation that it's impossible to defy your own social wavelength in trying to be somebody else you're not. As I look back on my social patterns, the varying stages of my growth, maturity and advancement were conspicuously captured and reflected on the varying groups of people I grew in and out of. Some were meant to be, and some just weren't. Along the way, I found handfuls of people who stayed in my life and never left. These no doubt blossomed and matured over time into lifelong friendships that are now stable and meaningful.

Looking at my friends in analysis, I've always felt that despite the certain imperfections and positive traits that gave rise to their individuality, each of them share an extraordinarily beautiful character, a pure heart and a deep soul. Hence if the reflection of oneself truly lies within the kind of people, romantic partners and friends you're truly comfortable with, then birds of a feather do indeed flock together. And it is with these reflections and principles that I reassured my friend Freida that everything will be okay, as nothing else currently matters more than our friendship of being able to understand each other and feel secure together as a wolf pack.

Taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture, I am genuinely grateful for the pure and beautiful bonds I've come to share with a handful of special souls. With such strong friendships in place, one develops more confidence in order to explore and mingle their way into other prospective social circles. Which brings me to '"birds of a feather may flock together, but the broadness of one's mind is definitely stretched and measured through their ability to mingle with differing levels of people". Remember that a poor person who mixes well with the rich doesn't affect his social standing or make him financially more wealthy, but rather respected and acknowledged for the broad level of mentality and capacity of thinking he is capable of.