Here's something I've been thinking about lately:

I've been thinking about why people join groups, whether it is a fraternity or a sorority or a club or a religion or a political party or whatever else people make themselves a part of. Everyone does it. And I've also been thinking about the dangers of identifying yourself solely within the confines a group, of only seeing yourself within the group, and not as a real person, an individual. When you do this, when you make adherence to the uniformity of a group your goal, then you lose yourself. It's easy to conform, instead of actually deciding who it is YOU are and what it is YOU want. It's so easy to join a group and mold your personality to it because of the lack of actual thought that goes into it; it's safe and not scary because you don't have to decide who it is you actually are and what it is you actually believe. It's all been decided for you. You don't have to think much about yourself, from what clothes to wear, to what your core beliefs and values are. But you're less of a person if you do this. You're just part of something, and you aren't a WHOLE anything. And when the group isn't there anymore--what are you then? What do you believe in? You aren't left with anything.

I just want to throw a challenge out there: start to see yourself as something other than the groups you belong to. Decide who YOU actually are, and take a second to think about why you believe what you believe.

This is a challenge for myself, of course. We all become too dependent on others to tell us what to believe.