The circle of acceptance and likeability ...

You cannot do what others are not doing and want to be accepted too. Or, liked either for refusing to join the circle except on your own terms. Or, even hoping to create a brand new circle in a brand new world.

You cannot be an outlier and still expect to be liked, understood and accepted until being an outlier has its audiences and the world creates a space for them too. There is certainly a power to listening to your own voice within but there is a huge price to pay too especially if you are a little ahead of your time. Even a tiny bit ahead is a lot if you are caught on the wrong side of the shift. A punishment for daring to be different or not being compliant. A price you pay many times over for daring to persist.

Being badass many a time is not about being stubborn or different just for the sake of being so, but mostly because one chooses to listen to one's own convictions and dreams and play by its rules than become part of what works for everyone. And, that automatically marks you as badass.

Compliance rewards people through acceptance. Being ahead of the curve in trying to stay authentic marks you as an outlier, never accepted or liked truly. There is an invisible resentment built because it makes it appear as if the circle is not worthy enough or those compliant have compromised. It dares to shake status quo. So, the punishment is swift. It shuns the outlier indirectly as a punishment for having shunned the circle.

It takes you a couple of decades sometimes even a lifetime to understand that being badass a little ahead of the curve earns you no stars, just earns you a lot of resentment and misunderstanding pitching you unintentionally as an outlier refusing to join the regular circle of acceptance. It is not personal.

Your best years are spent on passionately following your convictions while battling the longing to be accepted for it too. By the time you have more company with similar madness, being badass is already a worn out cliche inside you, but which the world starts spinning as a trend. And, you are lonely again ... having burnt so bright for so long ... and seeing a lot of candles come alive just when yours is dying out ... This is especially true for women but men who were outliers have struggled with it too. All through history. Especially if you were born just ahead of the shift.

In women especially if you are an outlier, you are indirectly questioning patriarchy without even meaning to. Just by being human and listening to your inner voice sans gender and fighting to stay free, you become subconsciously a challenge for patriarchy. The women resent because you do not join the circle in compliance and the men resent because you dare to when they themselves did not.

When you set out to do what your mother, grandmother and her mother did not ... there is a price you pay. So, you have two choices ... to succeed madly so the world comes around or fail badly so the world rejoices that it has stilled yet another rebel. Or, wear yourself out trying. And, this is most evident if you are born just ahead of the world's shift... where you belong to the generation that helped the shift happen but you did not succeed large enough for the world to notice.

As my my quote from the book Kill me with Love says ... ' You are truly home only when you find your tribe'.

The world has changed. And, you are not as much an outlier as you appeared before. It does rob you of your story and its rightful place in the fight for change.

You belong neither to the new tribe of cool badass nor to the compliant but content circle.You are a solo circle waiting for a tribe.

And, how you wait in that solo circle waiting for a tribe says everything about your collective wisdom gained through the price of life and your acceptance of your place on the stage minus the spotlight.

And, you sit comfortably by the fire of your solo circle, fully confident that there will be a wandering tribe ... searching for your solo tribe and knowing they have reached home ... knowing they are home because they see your light.

And, you know finally that is your role. To be the solo tribe long enough to know a tribe will come that will want it and seek it ... and know they are home.