The Importance Of Conformity In Society

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Pursuing a personal desire and choosing to conform to societal expectations is a challenging decision to make. A person must decide if their personal desire is worth risking the shame and judgment of others or is conforming the route to take because it is easier. When pursuing a personal desire one must ask itself if it is worth the hardship to accomplish one's desire or if it is best left alone and repressed, in hopes of finding comfort in conformity. John Laroche from The Orchid Thief expresses his personal desire without a care for conformity or societal expectations. Nevertheless, Laroche never stopped being strange as he grew up with fascinations of many objects such as orchids, turtles, old mirrors and fish tanks. In the excerpt from The Orchid Thief, Susan Orlean illustrates how John Laroche steers …show more content…

Laroche collected all sorts of strange items and never had a care in the world. Laroche’s hobbies had a wide range of out of the ordinary items such as orchids, turtles, fish... The list goes on. Laroche was confident enough in himself to find a passion of his and put his all into it which is a very admirable quality. Contradictory to John Laroche I struggled with conformity and did choose to conform to the appearance of everyone else. This desire of conformity made me alter my looks to please everyone but myself. In the end, I learned to never conform to societal expectation but to please myself instead. A person’s acceptance is not worth the sacrifice of their happiness. The pressure of conformity and the longing to fulfill one's personal desires is a difficult choice. If you choose to conform you can almost guarantee acceptance but lack happiness and if you choose to pursue personal desires you might lack acceptance but find true happiness. When battled with acceptance versus happiness it is up to the person to decide which they value most. In the end, the choice is

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