Customer Reviews

Fitting In Is Overrated: The Survival Guide for Anyone Who Has Ever Felt Like an Outsider

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Filled with poignant stories and very practical tips for those of us who live, work and dream on the periphery. The chapter on looking for the woundedness in the soul of another was beautiful and powerful. Felder is clearly a gifted and insightful author.

Author Felder is a psychotherapist who revels in his professional identity, but he writes more like a life coach. And that's a good thing.

I rated the book 5 stars because Felder offers realistic, action-oriented strategies to take in a number of difficult situations. The book's title doesn't encompass the variety of challenges Felder addresses. For instance, he offers techniques to deal with everyday stress, difficult bosses and intimidating experts.

However, I admit my first response was somewhat negative. I was reminded of all those ugly duckling stories: "Yes, you're different, but underneath you're going to outshine all your critics." But he's got good (though fairly conventional) advice.

Felder acknowledges that sometimes you can't invest energy in fitting in; you have to leave. I would have liked to see him go even further. In my experience, people who are most successful have a strong sense of self-awareness. They identify environments where they'll fit and where they won't. For example, on the PBS show Carrier, a female fighter pilot chose a situation where she would not be the first or only female in her group.

In contrast, Felder writes about a woman who felt alienated from her own apartment building. A single parent, she bought a condo in a complex with no other children. Felder suggests she seek out more child-friendly people. I would disagree. Some people simply don't want to be around children. This mother should choose a living environment where children were welcome.

I'm puzzled by Felder's suggestion for creatives to get day jobs. Sure, creative people often need day jobs -- sometimes all their lives. But they're often challenged to find day jobs where they (a) don't feel alienated and (b) they're not so worn down by their day jobs that they have no energy left for what they really want to do. Jobs tend to grow insidiously, making more and more demands on employees, especially good people.

The best part of the book comes when Felder suggests ways of creating connections where you're now the center of the group, not an outsider trying to break past a clique. I especially like his suggestions for creative holidays. Many single people feel alienated at gatherings of families - their own and other people's. I wish he had taken one more step to say, "It's okay to enjoy your own company. Being alone on holidays can be fulfilling and rewarding to some people."

Finally, Felder's definition of "outsider" seems broad enough to include just about anyone. I've attended high school and college reunions where people felt they had been outsiders - yet they had photos of parties attended, elections won and memberships achieved. I've experienced groups where I felt like an outsider but later realized the members really liked and accepted me.

Sometimes people feel alienated because they have unrealistic definitions of fitting in. And sometimes I suspect that many of us have fit in more than we realize.

Dr. Feldner deserves props for recognizing the problem and giving a thorough account of its dynamics, what it is like to live on the periphery of society, and the various shapes and forms in which it affects outsiders, of which I consider myself one. I felt as though the author was speaking directly to me as he was laying out the nature of the problem.

However, as is the case with most self-help books and with psychology/psychiatry in general, the author comes up short when suggesting solutions. The recommendations, at least to my mind, were vague and difficult to implement. I did not read anything specific as to how one implements the various strategies he seemed to be hinting at; in order for advice to be worth anything, it must be specific, unambiguous, and doable. This is where I would have liked to see more depth, perhaps in the form of examples/success stories of clients he has counseled, s opposed to outlining the problem. We outsiders understand the problem, it is the solution we are seeking.

Maybe Dr. Feldner can address this in a sequel?

This book is a must read for just about anyone - whether you've felt like an outsider or not. I discovered after reading the first few chapters, that I myself am an outsider in many ways, and never realized it before. The author really pulls you in and gives you many opportunities to examine your own life and discover where you can make changes, and how! I've used many of the techniques in my own life, and am already seeing an improvement. When you pick this book up, you won't want to put it down.

This book is well written, conversational and fluid, and full of very useful strategies for dealing with real world situations. Very well done.

What a joke. No one in that book really knew the first thing about being an "outsider." They all had jobs and friends and spouses. "Feeling like" an outsider is not at all the same as truly BEING an outsider. A real outsider doesn't have a job because he can't get hired. A real outsider doesn't have a spouse because no one of the opposite sex will accept him. A real outsider doesn't have any friends because no one of his own sex understands him. One woman worried about where to sit in the lunch room. What a crock. I always sat alone because wherever I sat, everyone else moved. That's what being an outsider means. I've read a great many helpful and useful books on psychology and self-improvement so that I'm not the complete outsider I was for 25 years, but this one was a complete waste of time, and I read it fast.

This is an excellent book with practical tips! It talks about why its so uncomfortable to stand apart, mistakes outsiders make, coping with cliques, finding peace with your family and breaking through when people arent ready for your ideas. While some of the advice and tips are really just common sense, the book helps "outsiders" understand why they have struggled so valiantly all their lives to fit in. The pain, challenge and struggle is enormous. I particularly liked hearing the stories of Macy Gray and Betty Friedan. I did not know that these powerful, creative women felt like outsiders who did not fit in who persevered through significant strife, doubt and loneliness. What would the world be like without them and what they contributed??!! More than anything, this book helps outsiders remember to cherish their uniqueness, to not give up, to leave the shadows and the fringe and to step into the light and live their best lives...the world needs the novel perspectives of the outsiders. It is only an original idea that has ever allowed the world and humanity to move forward. That is why fitting in is overrated indeed! This is an emotionally cathartic book that will help any outsider take positive and deliberate steps towards celebrating their differentness and making peace with their individuality.

This book made me feel good about NOT being part of the 'really popular group' for myself and my children. I highly recommend it for all parents.

The stories in this book are ones that people can relate to in their own lives...a way to see their own personal differences in the special light that more famous and successful people see themselves. "Fitting in is overrated" inspires readers to see the unique strengths of their own personal stories. I would particularly recommend this book for people in their 20s...and at another transition time, in their 50s.

This book had such glowing reviews I was really anxious to read it as a study of being an outsider. When I read it I felt that it was really for people who are socially inept and have very little insight into their minds and behaviors. It gives inspirational stories about people who pursued their strengths instead of the paths dictated by others. Isn't this sort of a given? To me this book is more of a "self-help" book for the above mentioned people than a sociological study of the concept of being an outsider. I also believe that being an outsider is often more a product of an individual feeling as if they are different rather than them actually being different.