An outsider is a person who quite simply does not fit in with existence-as-we-know-it.
Such a person is a fringe dweller, a dropout of humanity, a social oddball, and an alien endlessly coexisting in a society that doesn’t feel like home. On this website, we refer to the outsider as the “lone wolf” who walks through life with a feeling of inner isolation and disconnection. This isolation often gives birth to the longing and search for freedom, acceptance, and a true place to call “home.”
Can you relate to this feeling? Have you begun this quest?
There’s a reason why you feel this way, and it’s not because there is something defective or “wrong” with you. In fact, despite what you may feel about yourself and the world, being an outsider looking in is actually a huge advantage. I’ll explain to you why.
Why Do I feel Like an Outsider Looking In?
I have asked myself this question ever since I was about 10 years old. This sensation of being an outsider was originally triggered by my social rejection at school and religious condemnation at church.
In fact, I was practically raised being taught that I was an “alien on this earth,” and that Jesus could come back at any time and take me to my “true home” in heaven. So since the time I was born I have been indoctrinated with this idea.
Yet the feeling of being an outsider runs much deeper than religious brainwashing or being classed as one of the “unpopular kids” as a child. This feeling of being an outsider looking in is intrinsic, subterranean, and seemingly fundamental to my experience as a human.
And I know that you feel it too …
… otherwise, why would you be reading this article?
You have also carried this unshakable feeling with you. Sure, at some moments and periods of life you feel contented — but this feeling of not belonging always returns. Sometimes the feeling is subtle like a softly lapping lake at twilight. Other times, the feeling is overwhelming and makes you feel trapped in a never-ending desert of complete nothingness.
But it’s always somehow there in the background: in your interactions with people, in your observations, in your dreams, desires, and motivations, at the beginning and end of your day, and when you’re surrounded by others.
I know that you know what I mean. And this very feeling was why I decided to write in the first place. In fact, the feeling of being an outsider was the very catalyst for this entire website.
There are many reasons why you could feel like an outsider, but the most significant reason is that you were either born with or developed, an awakened soul.
We were all born with souls, but not all of us continued to feel that connection as we grew older. If you have felt like an outsider for most of your life, you are almost certainly a highly sensitive and spiritually receptive person. You have experienced first hand how isolating the ego can be. You know how unnatural it is to live in a society that is obsessed with fame, status, money, and power. You know how superficial, senseless, and insane living an ego-centered life is.
But you can’t quite verbalize this. You can’t quite understand what you’re going through because you’re inundated with feelings of being “strange,” “weird,” “different,” and “unworthy.”
You long for a home that you’ve never even experienced; a place to feel completely understood, loved, and cherished.
This place is your soul.
It is your soul — the true you — that seeks to experience itself again.
In other words, deep down, what you’re really craving for is truth.
The 10 Benefits of Being a Social Outsider
Every form of soul-searching starts off with the sensation of being an outsider. In fact, it is impossible to start the spiritual journey without this feeling. Without feeling like an outsider, what would motivate you to search for a true home or sense of belonging?
The very fact that you feel like an outsider indicates that your soul is trying to guide you towards true love, understanding, and freedom.
Almost every person I’ve spoken to in my time mentoring others has identified with this feeling of being an outsider looking in. All of these people have expressed a level of soulful maturity that surpasses the average person. In other words, these people saw beyond the pretensions of others, the rat-race of daily living and felt like there was much more to life than meets the eye.
Instead of unquestionably accepting what they had been taught, these outsiders were inquisitive and curious freethinkers.
Unfortunately, we’re often taught that being an outsider is a “bad” thing, and no wonder — biologically we are made to stay within the safe confines of our species’ groups. But there comes a moment in life where “playing by the book” is seen to be a miserable and unfulfilling absurdity. (Just look at all those people who followed the rules, got a good career, wife, children, solid salary, socially-approved status … and ended up miserable, empty, lonely, killing themselves, or dying prematurely due to stress-related illnesses. I’m sure you know one, or a dozen.)
So while being an outsider may seem isolating, it is actually profoundly beneficial for your life. I wish everyone had the opportunity to feel like an outsider because being an outsider is a catalyst for self-fulfillment, self-mastery, and self-realization.
If you have ever read the archetypal story of The Hero’s Journey from Joseph Campbell (that is repeated in every culture, time and period), you’ll realize that being an outsider is actually necessary for finding your true meaning and purpose in life. So the very fact that you feel like an outsider is actually a good sign: you’re on the right path!
It’s important that we learn to think of being a lone wolf or free spirit as a good thing. Many indigenous cultures, such as those in Africa and Australia, actually encourage the younger members to go out alone in the wilderness to find themselves as a rite of passage. Without accepting that isolation is part of experiencing true connectedness, we get lost very easily. We start believing everything is wrong with us, when in fact, we are simply being driven to pursue something of more depth and spiritual significance.
If you are receptive to your soul, it is only natural that you will feel displaced in this world. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.
Here are some major benefits of being an outsider:
- You are no longer constrained by the rules and beliefs of society as you can easily see through them.
- You are no longer brainwashed to think and act in a certain way.
- You have more freedom to listen to the voice within yourself more often.
- You have enough solitude to hear and understand what your heart really wants to do.
- You can see the bigger picture and not get lost in the details.
- You can connect with your soul more easily than others.
- You have been given the space and room to grow in whatever way you like.
- You have the opportunity to experience greater connection by finding a like-minded group of people, or soul group.
- The ability to observe others gives you a greater capacity for wisdom and also compassion.
- You have the necessary catalyst to experience self-fulfillment and self-realization should you choose that path.
Although being an outsider can be terribly lonely, it is a privileged position. Leaving the herd of humanity allows you to flourish and blossom in ways you never could experience while being “normal” and socially “acceptable.”
Finally, here’s a quote from Eckhart Tolle’s book (The Power of Now p. 173);
Being an outsider, to some extent … makes life difficult, but it also places you at an advantage as far as enlightenment is concerned. It takes you out of unconsciousness almost by force.
What does being an outsider looking in mean to you?
This made me cry. Thank you!!!
You brush vast majority of branches that in my own upbringing I myself have had the undeniable displeasure of realising and that breif glint of relatable co-existance on this poor world gives me more solace than anything I’ve ever done/thought/obsessed over in my ceaseless struggle to find a flower I nourish rather than immolate.. My only burdening afterthought is that it is just as those few of us are truly aware, another view, another leaf on a tree that seems to inevitably rot and decay as the months, years and decades blow by.. Growing up amongst a society that’s ever expanding towards indoctrination, conformity and compliance while it continually neglects and disdains any true acknowledgement of the crucial changes that need adjusting immediately is a level of greed driven, materialistic and egotistical ignorance that sadly has done nothing but prove time and time again to my mind that we few aware of such monstrosity and manipulative rejection towards truly thinking of the grand scale, beyond gender, race, religion, species and anything some might potentially deem more significant than others, know how fickle and non-existent time is, how unbalanced and destructive this wod is becoming and amongst my many, many fears.. I can’t honestly say that I can ever recall a point in which I’ve felt anything I do or even express, nay anything those of us with the true awareness of the scale at which things have come undone to truly have any power, spiritually awoken or not, to revoke the near mindless conformity and fear, that will send this race to extinction instead of a unity that sorely needed to be addressed and strived for decades ago…
How does one feel they have any real purpose in existing in a world that’s already predisposed individualism for a mere statistical blip and another animal to be used as fodder for a creature that is so dependant on it’s own contempt with ignorant bliss over the acknowledgement of where this will take the future of our world?.. There’s only so many layers that will she’d before the world or some kind of sentience steps in to eradicate us for devolving from something with potential into a mere parasite of a species. Wether we are more than the vessel or not, to endure an upbringing, conform in any way, shape or form simply leads to another potential consequence or soul left to suffer and endure, witnessing the end of something they potentially weren’t even aware of.. countless moths to the flame, very little aware of the moon…
I have felt like a lone wolf since I was able to remember and be aware of ,my surroundings. Even death seemed something that was impossible to me-like the soul could not possible die.
That being said, connecting with people Was and still is a challenge. I have never really belonged in any relationship. Among friends, I have always felt like the one looking in. I felt like a supporting actress in a movie but never the main character.
I am coming to peace with it.
Thank you for writing this. It’s really comforting to hear (or read) not only that there’s nothing wrong with being an outsider, but also that it’s a privilege, a sign of being on the right path. I guess spiritual changes, at least not at first, aren’t as obvious as, for instance, having kids, moving into a bigger apartment or getting promoted at work. For most people I know, such visible changes are the one and only “criteria” of so-called personal growth and living to your full potential.
Again, thank you for making me realize that not meeting this “criteria” doesn’t necessarily make me a complete loser, wasting my life.
I wish you all the best.
Firstly i wanna thank you,i mean I’m 18 now but honestly i feel like throughout my teenage years I’ve always felt like a outsider. Constantly trying to adapt to my surroundings but i lost myself along the way. My mom used to work as a maid while juggling online education and practically raised me on her own, and she got me into good Model C multi racial schools and I honestly those were my happy times. She then found love and we had to relocate to a slightly different place, I’m moved to a new school where I’m one of the weird smart kids to knows more than he should so I acted like I didn’t come from a good school, i hid some of my talents..i just didn’t wanna seem like a snob to my peers cause everybody has this impression that just cause you have something that other people don’t have your rich or wealthy and in my case my mom really worked hard to change our living situation. She worked hard to get me into good school and get me all the things i asked for even if they seemed impractical but I hide these type of things from my peers. I’ve been doing it my whole life. Sometimes i express myself in a weird way that might seem normal to me but i end up getting laughed at and feeling like a clown. But not everything is bad i do have friends, few but i do have them and i just like seeing them happy but the thing is, in my group of friends + family i have no one that i talk to about my life problems and deeper thoughts. I’m a curious soul but i don’t have anyone to answer my questions. In Grade 7 and 8 i was bullied in my new school, mainly cause my uniqueness was seen as weakness but i never told anyone about it. My classmates could see it but you know, no one tried helping so i swallowed the pill. Along the way i just got used to the feeling of being the outcast, the odd one out. I now write songs, you know im going to become a successful recording artist one day but for the right reasons. I wanna change the living situation at home, i want make my family happy and proud.
Reading this article really helped me. I’m mostly going to reccomend it to my friends and i just wanna thank you again for writing this. I’ve seen most of my peers choke themselves out to avoid being a outcast. People in your work field are true heroes.
This is the first time I felt understood. I actually cried while reading this since as a kid I’ve always thought something was wrong with me. Now I know, everything is in its right place and alright. Thank you :)
What drives me crazy about this sort of thing is that if you are reading this article then you are not really an outsider as you are just conforming to he cultural story imposed on you by this website.
Still, this makes sense to not view being an outsider as a bad thing or something that needs to be fixed. What I struggle with is how to express and receive empathy if you are finding yourself in the position of an observer always?
I’ve always been an outsider. My parents never passed up an opportunity to tell me that they wished I was dead or that I was a mistake. My two sisters could do no wrong in their eyes and I was beaten, locked in closets and mentally abused. My mother told me on her deathbed again that I wasn’t part of the family. I never fit in. I was artistic not sporty or academic like my sisters. Reading this all makes sense of everything. I’ve always identified more with wolves and now I know why. Thankyou
I don’t know if you will read this comment but, there is a very good chance that you grew up in a narcissistic family. Children play specific roles in these type of familial structures. It sounds like you were the scapegoat child. I never had any idea what narcissism was until I started looking into and I everything in my childhood and why things were the way they are finally made sense. I just want you to know that you are ENOUGH. You always have been. But, this truth has been difficult to see when you have been lied to your whole life.
I feel lost every day. Everyone is calm,couples easily and finds love and friendship,has a job that pays well…and then there’s me. Never finding the answer. No love.no friendship.no peace. Struggling to make it. What’s wrong with me? Are the beautiful ppl the only ppl worth finding love and having a life? Am I destined for nothing?
It’s very important in this life not to care about what others think about you, you only have one life and you are on this planet for a very short amount of time, so live and dress how you want to, as long as you are not hurting others.
Most ”normal” people go through life not realizing there is more to the world and they have accepted everything what has been told to them since they were young, people who are different to the majority are feared and ostracized because they do not know how to react when they meet someone who does not fit the mold.
There is nothing wrong with you, for a long time i thought there was with me but then i realized we live in a very sick world where people are not encouraged to think for themselves and be themselves, and a world where the majority of people turn a blind eye to the poverty and desperation of what is happening.
Most ”outsiders” are actually very much caring, intelligent, empathetic people, who see the world for what it really is.
I tried for a long time in my youth to fit in to the society we live in, but its not worth sacrificing your own humanity, individuality, and your own identity for it. The grass is not greener on the other side and it is better to be free in mind than to be a drone.
Thanks for helping us understand this topic. You have written it in a habit that makes it unquestionably simple to understand. vuphespuzij7drl4ospo
I’m in a very bad place right now. I truly feel cut off from everyone and everything . I’m thoroughly disillusioned with life. Everything leaves me feeling lost, empty and alone. The pursuit of money, the pursuit of love……everything. At this point the world seems like a completely dark and depressing and endlessly lonely place. If I wasn’t so scared of the unknown I’d leave this world to the cruel, cold blooded and money hungry people that run it. This world was made for them, not me. I don’t know what world I belong in but I know it isn’t this one.
To start off I’d like to say that I’ve felt this devide since as long as if been alive. I would be surrounded by people, all of which I’d know, but feel separate, like time would move slower for me compared to the others. -I’ve always been much more mature compared to peers.- I can’t help but feel a little depressed in time when I notice this distance. Any ideas for working past this feeling of separation? I’m new to the idea of self-realization and I’ve never really found a path I’ve wanted to follow.
-A lost wolf
First of all i want to say thank you for shining light on being a so called “lone wolf.” I have recently fully embraced my awakened soul. I stopped drinking last year and have recently gave up smoking weed as well all due to me finding my awakened soul. Man was it hard at first though. I felt so lonely, misunderstood and at times doubted the process and at times i returned to the other side momentarily. Reading this article has helped me so much. I now fully embrace my awakened soul and being a lone wolf. I can honestly say i feel happier and stronger than ever and i just wanted to say thank you for writing this article for others experiencing the same
. You have made me feel confident and content with myself, no longer doubting who i am and what i stand for. I just wanted to say i appreciate you and your soul. To all the lone wolfers, let me hear you howl!
Awoooo!
I have lived my whole life with an awakened soul, it woke up when I was 8, and for the whole of my life, I have wandered to different countries searching for a place or person that feels like home. Tell me how to deal with this pain.
Perhaps start here, Chandhini. <3
For as long as i can remember, pretty much since i entered into school i have always felt different than others around me. Prior to Kindergarten i had experienced life altering trauma at the age of 3 when my father was taken to the hospital and my mom away at work wasn’t able to pick me up. So the police, and paramedics arrived in towed and loaded my father onto a stretcher. I didn’t know how to process it at the time come to think about it. What i do recall is the police deciding where to place me and i spent 3 days at a foster home. That night i cried for my parents, and the lady told it honestly she said “you’re mommy and daddy aren’t coming to pick you up.” I barely remember much about those three days. I felt so emotionally empty as a person, and i barely talked to the ladies two sons. That in part was what gradually began my mom’s divorce against my father who has bipolar disorder.
Growing up I didn’t want much to do with people, sure i grew to have some friends, but deep down all i ever wanted was to be accepted for who i was. Instead i grew to enjoy playing videogames, and in part became obsessed with playing them. It’s an Aspergers thing, and i have it. Also as a kid i wanted to wear diapers, and that desire still doesn’t go away no matter how hard i try. Sure i could go on about the plenty of times that i dealt with verbal abuse from others, and the times i’d make mistakes i’d get yelled at. Simply put heading into my teen years was probably the most stressful transition for me. I’ll never forget my mother telling me at 13 “you’ve gotta learn to interact with people.” In my mind i was thinking “why should i give a fuck about talking to people, they’re all assholes.”
I’ve lived my life having felt different, and a part of me is trying to overcome my own inner demons. I could say how fucking egotistical humans are in general because so many of them are brainwashed and conditioned by a world of psychopaths. It can be a struggle to overcome your own battles, and i know the world will never change or give a flying fuck. I have tried to love myself, and deep down it feels super weird. I have suppressed my emotions, and anger for so many years i’m surprised that my organs aren’t ready to explode.
I’ve always felt like I’ve been an outsider looking in. I have Aspergers and had dealt with my share of people rejecting me. At my age of 32 I’ve been struggling to overcome my repressed anger and rage I’ve buried for years. For me I tried being normal but in a neurotypically dominated society that just doesn’t happen at all. I also dealt with early trauma as a toddler, and felt like the way our society is doesn’t work. From an early age after the trauma I was more interested in playing videogames than interacting with people. By the time I was 13 a part of me had already hated the world. I have also dealt with the shame of trying to hide the fact a part of me has wanted to wear diapers since childhood and I don’t know why.
I’ve struggled a lot and deep down have had trust issues with people most of my life. I’m a very stubborn person who doesn’t care to be much a part of society as humans never change. I’ve also been told “you’re highly intelligent and good looking you can get any woman you want. Why don’t you?” Why because I have a woman I love and she has Aspergers. She understands and gets me better than any woman I know. Then again with her I never disclosed much of my past. As it is I keep things to myself and me as stubborn in general proves it isn’t easy for me to change. I admit I’ve been afraid of people for as long as I’ve been alive. I can feel others emotions and angry words can feel painful so i avoid talking to most people in general.