The self-expression curve

Often it's easier to conform to the expectations of your peers at work and elsewhere in your social orbit:

This is a mistake when taken too far, though, as you'll miss attracting the people who are most on your wavelength. The range of response to any signal you're sending out, whether by your attitude, writing, singing, anything ... will be distributed something like this:

Negative                                       Meh                         Positive/Resonant

The fat part in the middle will be the majority of the response: indifference, slightly negative to the left and slightly positive to the right. At the extremes will be the people on the left who just hate your signals and the right who just resonate to them.

In certain circumstances you may want to restrict your real signal to a select audience:

Debris outside the offices of Charlie Hebdo after the 2011 attack on their office

But mostly you shouldn't have to worry about the people who don't like what you're putting out: they'll mostly ignore you ... just what you want.

So if you just conform and don't send any signal out that you think might offend anybody, all you get is meh. If you're willing to say something of what you really are, you'll get this wider range and you can gather up people to love and resonate with, like this:

Try it and see what happens!