People struggle with alienation and feelings of loneliness, much more so since the start of the pandemic. Suddenly, with self-isolation, societal boundaries were redrawn and you might have found yourself lost in the shuffle. How can you find a place where you belong?
Feelings of being displaced from your niche in society are common. When your self in relation to society is not aligned to its optimal state, it can increase the feeling of being unsettled. You become lost when trying to find a place where you belong.
Do you find yourself searching for meaning?
Maybe you’ve found yourself in an existential crisis. You come up with nothing when you evaluate your contribution to society. When your self-worth is dependent on whether you are acceptable to society, you may find yourself trying to conform when really you want to just be who you are.
1. Are you valuable to society?
When the things that we do feel so meaningless, it’s easy to feel like you don’t contribute anything to society. When you question what value you bring to society, a diminishing self-esteem follows. If they would rate their life satisfaction, the ratings would be dismal. But you need to stop that negative self-talk. Everyone can be valuable to society. It can feel small when you start, but you are underestimating the impact you make. There are several steps you can take to feel more like a valuable contributor to society.
2. Find a career that enriches your life.
Dissatisfaction comes from feeling disengaged and apathetic. To have a meaningful life, find something that interests you and gives you fulfillment. This applies not only to the work environment, but the people that you spend the most time with.
We are social creatures. Even if we don’t like it, our happiness depends on other people. Our career and workplace are where we spend most of our time outside of our homes. So it’s essential that you choose the right one.
The friends and family in your social circle should be supportive and encouraging of your hopes and aspirations. Carving out a space to be yourself also means choosing the right people to surround yourself with.
This leads to the next step.
3. To find a place where you belong, search for the right community, friends, or work environment.
Society can feel like a machine that you’re not an essential part of, like you’re not essential to making it run. The reason why people feel disconnected from society is because they don’t play an active role in it.
Try community-giving or volunteering your time to a worthy cause. A simple act of charity means that you’ve played a role in a stranger’s life, no matter how small.
Do something that involves teamwork and share that work with other people, to strangers, to people you meet on the street.
4. Communities thrive because the people who live in it are productive and creative.
Exercise your creativity because it’s a valuable skill. Creativity is like the universal key to relatability. It is easy to find a thread of commonality with others if you are sharing your creativity. Everyone has thoughts, hopes, and ambitions, which you can pour into your creation. Build something out of nothing and then share it.
5. What value do you bring to society?
It’s a tough question because sometimes you feel like you’re just a cog in the wheel. When trying to make room for yourself in society, and to find a place where you belong, it can feel like knocking on everyone’s door and getting turned away.
The secret is to know which door to knock on. Not everyone is willing to listen to you or be your friend, so the best thing to do is to be selective and choose carefully.
The self and society are sometimes at war with each other, struggling to align but not achieving any ground of commonality. Sometimes it’s hard to know where you stand in society. The search for meaning can be lonely. Start by finding work that fulfils you, then fill your life with people who support you. Fan that creative spark and share it with these people, because that’s where you can find commonality, and belonging.