Believe me, you are not the only one who feels this way. There are many people out there who feel alone and misunderstood and can even be underestimated by others because of certain personality traits.
Paradoxically, these individuals are usually much more talented, intelligent, and deep than those who reject them. Still, being uninterested in popular things along with being too reserved and introspective may make you appear a sort of freak to the mediocre minds.
It’s all because human beings tend to be cautious and judgemental towards those who live, think, and behave differently. So if you don’t share the interests and beliefs of the majority, you will probably face misunderstanding and rejection at some point in your life.
Some may judge you for being too quiet, unfriendly, or aloof; others may believe that you are a weirdo because you are passionate about things they cannot understand.
It’s not uncommon when even your close ones, such as your parents or your partner, seem to misinterpret your lifestyle and underestimate your passions. No need to say that this can be much more painful than the lack of understanding from people you are not so close to.
So what can you do when you feel alone and misunderstood?
The more you understand, the less you are understood by other people.
-Anna LeMind
Sometimes, the best way to stop worrying about being misunderstood is to accept it as a reality you cannot change.
You need to realize that other people have a different perspective on what’s right or wrong, good or bad, interesting, or boring. Unfortunately, most of us don’t even try to actually understand someone – we are too quick to judge because it’s much easier.
So instead of holding grudges and being mad at the world, accept it as a fact and move on. Remember the quote by James Blanchard Cisneros: ‘Once you awaken, you will have no interest in judging those who sleep.’
It’s pointless to try to connect with people who cannot recognize the depth of your mind and personality in the first place. You will inevitably face misunderstanding and, as a result, will feel alone and disappointed.
The truth is that only a deep individual can appreciate and understand another deep individual. So seek to make connections with people you resonate with and who have a similar level of consciousness.
A good start would be to find individuals who share the same interests as you. Let’s say you are passionate about literature – so why not join a local poetry club.
It may be a difficult task if you are socially awkward, but the presence of interesting people who have a common ground with you will eventually make it easier to start a conversation with some of them.
You will see how many deep people you will meet and, who knows, some of them may make really great friends.
The only thing that truly matters is to find your purpose in life and build your lifestyle around it. While your passions and interests may be unpopular, they will eventually help you find your place in life and will fill your existence with meaning. So don’t worry if your dreams and priorities don’t seem “cool” to other people and stop seeking their approval.
I know that it’s much easier said than done, but as soon as you find yourself and your path in life, you will realize that people’s opinion is the last thing that should bother you.
Basically, it’s the need to be likable and socially acceptable that makes many of us unhappy (and especially those who are different from the rest).
Finally, remember that it’s okay to feel alone and detached from the world and people from time to time. Individuals with a deep personality are particularly prone to these feelings because modern society is driven by ignorance and superficiality.
So it makes perfect sense why they may feel like misfits no one really understands and appreciates. However, it’s not like this and be sure that the right people will see your personality in all its beauty and will appreciate you for what you are.
What are your thoughts on this? Share them with us in the comment section below.
P.S. If you often feel alone and misunderstood, check out my new book The Power of Misfits: How to Find Your Place in a World You Don’t Fit In, which is available on Amazon.
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Aside from being deep, I realize that there are other aspects at play, so when I'm feeling some kind of way about how others respond to me, I just say this to myself: Accept yourself and your imperfections and accept the imperfect people who have an issue with you because of your imperfections.
Just came across this site while internet 'researching' (the quotes because I'm not using scientific methodology, so maybe it demeans 'real' research) matters related (psychology and the like).
I just wanted to give my take on the article, which I found to be an interesting read, with some very valid points bearing deeper thought! (sorry! pun intended! ;o)).
I think the comment about being demeaning to non-deep thinkers, was actually more relevant than some of the more dismissive replies appeared to suggest. To my mind (yes, it's only my personal opinion, dislike it as much as you want or need to!), there seem to be many people who are using this 'new' classification of people who are 'deep thinkers' as a subconscious means of finding a way back into the society we each live in/with/without by finding a social group we can attach ourselves to, something greatly missing and greatly sought out by many social outsiders, whatever the cause of their disposition (and yes, this is just a slice of the whole, and only one factor of the many involved, I'm not ignorant of that, but need to keep it as simple as possible).
(damnit! I'm slipping into verbiage already! sorry!)
Lets restart - I think the idea of deep thinking is much more the description of an effect with many potential causes, of different degrees of quantity and quality, that for different reasons (environmental as well as any congenital predisposition) leads to what we're describing as Deep Thought or Deep Thinkers. But who is to say what form our actual thoughts follow, and what similarities and also differences with other people who are classed as deep thinkers, will take?
To attribute 'good' and 'bad' to whether someone has 'deep' thoughts or not is only done from the p.o.v. of the observer.
Maybe from our superior(?!) view, we miss some positive attributes that a non-conscious evaluation can bring? Personally I think this is less the case as our society progresses, as most instincts are to do with surviving long enough to raise offspring, and these skills or abilities are no longer changing due to genetic evolution (which takes many many generations), but more to the environment changing us within our lifespan.
Personally (yup, I'm as vulnerable as others to slipping into personal opinions etc) I'm blessed & cursed with having pretty much only semantic conscious thoughts, I have no access to memories (be they from actual sensory input (vision, sounds, tastes and smell, etc), or from my imagination) what so ever that I can consciously be aware of. This has drastically limited all the vast array of non-verbal communications that most people not only benefit from in learning to become a part of a society or community (I see society as strategic, and community as tactical), but are blissfully unaware of, as they're using a lot of their subconscious mind to process and feed the information back to the conscious mind. An extreme and simple example is my facial recognition system which is highly dysfunctional (I can't visualise the face of even my wife or mother, and find it very hard to remember other people in many circumstances.
So from an early age I've had to devote my semantic/logical mind to consciously processing the incoming data, to translate it from the form in which most people communicate (lots of non-verbal inputs), to a form that makes sense to me, in an almost purely logical manner. This, plus the profound confusion I experienced well into adulthood ("what is this unspoken secret that everyone else knows, yet I don't even know how to ask about?") have forced me to become a deep thinker, just to survive in this world. Just to learn how to fake what almost everyone else takes for granted without conscious thought, and as my own journey of discovering what reality is, beyond the hallucination our brains feed our minds (hence a lifelong interest in science).
This is a poor post, very chaotic, but I don't intend rewriting (as I usually have to in normal comms) as it also shows my mind at work to some degree, even if it makes little sense to most/all?
Anyway, I guess my main point is that we should be wary of falling into that very human trap of making assumptions because we want or need them to be true. Not saying I'm any better either, but I think some things can only be examined from an external point of view (relatively speaking), and that's something few people if any can manage without applying an artificial methodology to try and remove personal biases.
(Not to mention the fact that it's a false philosophy that observer and observer and not connected).
We all have our own cognitive bias's and by their very nature, we are unlikely to be conscious of them unless they're pointed out by someone or something else. The real power we could generate comes from the acceptance that there are as many different minds as there are people, and it's only by putting them together in an ordered and managed fashion that we gain from the synergies things we would never achieve alone. I believe that there are people born and raised (often by chance) to be particularly good at certain mental tasks, and by having the right people in the right place we can achieve far more than any other way, but for that to happen in any real way, socially speaking, people need better education, and it's our societies total failure to teach us the things that matter most, that as a society we have failed ourselves and our world miserably!
No conclusions here beyond what little you make of the above, which is quite possibly total bull, but it's my bull, and I'm happy to have my own bull, and happy for others to have theirs, it's only when thoughts are to become actions that we need use our deepest thoughts if we want a chance of success as a species. Too bad we missed our chance though. I'd like to think something better will come, something with intelligence, but also the maturity of psyche which we needed to safely handle our rapid changes, but which we mostly failed to achieve.
I understand this article is old but I do need to comment. If anyone wishes to reply, good.
I am a widow without children (not by choice). I am also a Dr, so reasonably intelligent. I found this article excellent and I believe if you are what you call 'different' embrace the difference. Society today worry too much about what other people think about them. Just be yourself. I personally have had a vast amount of cruelty and rejection all my life, as I am told I am an intelligent and attractive confident professional women but I am 95 percent dyslexic and at times it is challenging! Believe me, there are no one any cruler people than woman with children and grandchildren who believe they have the right to critise and openly talk about you, all because you are everything they are not! It's ridiculous, it really is. I happily live my live on my own with my two little Jack Russell rescue dogs, and my life is choosing what I want to do when I want too! Having lived in a very strict professional career for many years you cannot believe how free I feel. I don't have girl friends as they just do not like me. The reason being after taking many years of heart ache from women I suddenly understood, I had everything they dreamed of having. I have never understood why women find it necessary without question, to pass comment or so you can hear. I would never involv or respond to these type of questions and woman hate this about me! Go figure .... I find women unreliable and untrustworthy and cruel but I don't care. I am different and love it! It has taken me a life time to understand that fact, but nor will I, or should I apologise for this fact. If people don't like this we'll so be it. People today are shallow and selfish and having been a sole career for my parents, and late husband for most of my life, I feel not guilt for enjoying my life on my own. I believe people who now find themselves looking after their grandchildren five days a week well 'ok' where is your quality of life, surely you haven't work for 50 years to do this? It's mad!!
I am different and people must understand being different is a blessing as you never need to apologise for being who you are, or indeed what you aspire to be. If people don't like these facts we'll ask yourself why? I am dylexic and hopefully all this makes sense 🙀