“Look at you.
You’re pathetic.
Stop trying to control everything,
and just
let go.
LET. GO.”
– Tyler Durden, Fight Club
The narrator’s lack of a name in Fight Club is a deliberate narrative choice reflecting his absence of identity. His self-concept is mediated through consumer culture — his possessions and professional status stand in for personality. Undoubtedly, Tyler’s words echo louder now than in 1999. The film’s core is brutally simple: the things you own end up owning you… and most people cheerfully sign the lease.
This begs the question: who are you when you’re not performing?
Over the summer, a friend told me about her roommate, who nearly had a full-blown panic attack over what to wear for Slope Day. The reason? Her sorority happened to be wearing skirts while she was in jeans. Jeans were apparently unacceptable. I sat there, trying not to laugh, because honestly — how did we get here? How did a piece of denim become a moral dilemma? And more importantly, why are we letting other people’s arbitrary rules dictate how we show up in the world?
Jeans, people. That panic — over fabric — is just a microcosm of a bigger problem. It’s exhausting. We spend our lives waiting for someone else to give us permission: permission to travel, permission to eat at a restaurant alone, permission to make a decision without a group vote. I miss crossing paths with those who embrace their eccentricities, who act authentically and alone if they must, unbothered by the expectations of others.
So stop outsourcing your life to the herd.
Do it anyway. Go alone. Take pictures. Post nothing — or maybe post everything. Do it fully. Do it often.
Since arriving in Dublin for my study abroad semester, people keep telling me they’re too scared to travel Europe alone. I get it — safety concerns are real, and fear isn’t inherently bad. Fear can save lives. But waiting for your friends to book the flight is how you end up never going anywhere at all. And it’s only embarrassing if you make it embarrassing. I recently spent hours at Munich’s Dokumentationszentrum Museum, making sure I could read every single panel in every exhibit. No one was waiting for me, no one was judging the pace at which I explored the material. It was exhilarating, not having to answer to anyone. Sure, you’ll stumble, get lost, make a fool of yourself occasionally — but that’s the point. You’ll discover small triumphs you never would have if you had waited for others.
At its core, conformity culture pits social cohesion against self-actualization. There’s something bittersweet about glimpsing who someone could be, restrained by fear or obligation. A friend once told me about his mom: clever, humorous and an astonishing painter. Yet she keeps herself tethered to a conventional career as an insurance attorney. Security wins, but personality is curtailed. Her humor, curiosity and spontaneity emerge only in fleeting moments before retreating behind a monotonous 9-to-5 routine. That tension is familiar.
As a Pakistani, there’s a daily code-switch — different language, jokes and posture depending on who’s listening. It’s useful, even skillful, but it also trains you to anticipate disapproval and censor impulses before they surface. Those small edits add up: a muted laugh here, an unexplored curiosity there, a postponed trip somewhere else. Noticing the pattern hasn’t erased it, but it has made me deliberate about when to stop editing and start acting. That tension between keeping the peace and claiming yourself is why choosing to go alone, to wear the jeans, or to speak out feels less like rebellion and more like necessary self-restoration. Choosing yourself does not require disrespecting anyone; it requires resisting the internalized hierarchy of approval.
Let’s cut the pleasantries: the pursuit of external approval is a pathetic trade. You are trading the vivid, difficult friction of an honest life for the easy, flat comfort of being inoffensive. You spend your critical energy surveilling a group of people too busy surveilling themselves to even notice you. This constant internal editing isn’t an act of social grace; it’s a daily, compounding self-betrayal. You are choosing to be a muted echo instead of a clear voice.
The only thing this self-management guarantees is a future where your biography is entirely interchangeable with ten thousand other terrified conformists.
Stop calling your inertia “maturity.” It is intellectual laziness. The only barrier to the life you claim you want is the decision you keep postponing. Stop being a passenger, waiting for permission from a driver who’s asleep at the wheel.
Aima Raza is a junior in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations. She can be reached at ar2548@cornellsun.edu.
Hater Friday runs on Fridays and centers around critiquing media or culture.
