Running With the Pack

If you're anything like me, I bet you like to think that you're one of a kind. And, of course, we all are.

But Daniel Gilbert, a Harvard psychology professor, made me think more carefully about why we should care if we're unique. In his book, "Stumbling on Happiness," Gilbert describes how most people pursue choices that actually undermine happiness.

As he said, "We don't always see ourselves as superior, but we almost always see ourselves as unique. Even when we do precisely what others do, we tend to think that we're doing it for unique reasons....we enjoy thinking of ourselves as special.

"Most of us want to fit in well with our peers, but we don't want to fit in too well. We prize our unique identities, and research shows that when people are made to feel too similar to others, their moods quickly sour and they try to distance and distinguish themselves in a variety of ways."

Let me see if I've got this straight. When I find myself doing things out of social pressure, in order to seem more like everybody else - sweeping my sidewalk to keep the neighborhood looking tidy, contributing to friends' charitable causes, dressing appropriately for business meetings, not embarrassing my kids at school by acting too dorky - that's a good thing.

But maybe some of the things we all do because everyone else we know is doing it - coloring our hair with the same caramel highlights everyone uses, or smoothing away all the lines on our faces - we are actually undermining our potential for happiness because we are erasing the very aspects of the way we look that make us unique.

I know from personal experience that Gilbert is onto something true. I was rarely happy with my dyed hair color but now that I am often the only woman in the room with gray hair, I find that I love the way it makes me feel. The singular way my hair has gone gray is all I need to feel unique. And happy.

From Yahoo Health