Festive. Sensitive. Hilarious. Saucy. Efficient. Rough around the edges. All of these are appropriate compliments I will accept with genuine gratitude. However kind you think you are being, though, “interesting” is not among my list of acceptable compliments.

There has been a shift in our societal tolerance and acceptance of being labeled as strange, weird, odd or different. Though back in the days of puffy sleeves and even puffier hair, when being labeled any of these would have been at least slightly degrading, nowadays we revel in having our obscurities pointed out. We get tattoos and piercings, listen to bluegrass and jazz, mismatch our socks, use only spoons and eat tomatoes on Tuesdays. We do whatever it takes to have people associate us with our very own quirky habits.

Well, I’m sick of it, and you should be too.

I don’t think I can recall the number of times people have discovered a habit of mine that is slightly different from theirs, and all of a sudden they get this sparkle in their eyes, and I’m some sort of interesting new creature they’ve discovered and have to probe. I try to explain that I don’t match my socks because I’m lazy, not because I’m attempting to solve a global crisis, but they won’t have any of that.

There must be some troubling secret I am withholding, people seem to think. I pinky promise to you, I’m not being vague in an attempt to seem mysterious; I am sincerely quite average in most aspects.

Those posters on the walls of our elementary schools telling us in colorful block letters that “an original is worth more than a copy” have failed in their attempt to rear a generation of independent thinkers. Instead we have fallen to a norm of the day, striving for strangeness.

This is not to take away from everyone’s wonderful qualities and talents, but it’s necessary to realize that we’re really not all that different from one another. More importantly, it’s necessary we realize that we don’t have to be.

Wow, I’m cynical, aren’t I?

I wouldn’t say so. I would say that there is no need to look further than inward to find something worthwhile. The potential you have is all you need to feel validated. There is no need to fret if all your interests are commonplace. It doesn’t matter if you dress like someone out of a Belk catalogue instead of like an H&M mannequin. There’s no fault in having an iPhone and Ugg boots.

Because I can sense your eyes rolling at the suggestion that we all become the same person and leave all trace of individual qualities behind, please note: There is a distinction between feeling pressure to reinvent yourself into something that sticks out and being innately different in thought and feeling. It’s unfortunate that we have transplanted the importance of individuality to a place of being contrary for the sake of going against the grain. And this is not what the poets and songwriters meant when they told us to take the path less traveled by.

A dinner partner discussing creativity and the individual this Sunday shared with me a quote from Charles Mingus.

“Creativity is more than just being different. Anybody can plan weird; that’s easy,” Mingus said. “What’s hard is to be simple as Bach. Making the simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity.”

Rather than seeking praise and accreditation through quirks that tell no more about our psyche than our hair color, we should seek to be valuable in our originality in action and thought.