Expository Essay on Identity and Belonging

1610 Words7 Pages
Society has played a crucial role throughout time in impacting people to have the natural human desire to be accepted into society and adhere to its expectations and pressures. Maintaining a strong sense of individual identity in today's society proves to be a difficult and complex ideal that can only be achieved if personal sacrifices are to be made. Individual's who desperately seek acceptance and belonging will neglect their true identity in order to conform to the expectations of others. Individuals who are faced with restrictions that impose on their individuality will experience immense hardship and masking those feelings for the sake of acceptance. Therefore in the aim of a strong sense of individual identity, individuals who withstand and refrain from succumbing to society's expectations are those who remain true their own identity regardless. Individual's shielding their true identity in order to be accepted and belong to particular groups of society. A person's beliefs and loyalty can be lost to a preference of loosing their sense of self and identity, by willingly conforming for the sake of belonging. This idolized choice of changing one's self for the acceptance of others is featured prominently through media and advancements of materialistic objects. Vulnerable and unconfident individuals will generally have a foreshadowed perception of popularity and tend to place those who are of richer or of popular basis on pedestals, desiring to be accepted by that elite group of people. Inevitably approving any form of personal identity change by hiding their moral and ethical views in order to gain a place in the hierarchy. Although, this is of typical behaviour regardless if it was a child or a grown adult, individuals naturally want to belong and have that feeling of security and acceptance by their peers. The famous poet Oscar Wilde states “Most people are
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