Seeking Inclusion

Inclusion is a motivator which many people secretly harbor as an insecure need rather than a logical want. This weakness of need to belong can have very dire consequences. It is at the heart of gang membership, extremist political groups, cults, and crimes perpetrated by mobs. The need to be included and the drive to remain in good standing within a particular group causes even the most intelligent people exhibit behaviors that are beyond logical reasoning. 

Most opportunities to join a group are laced with some form of personal sacrifice. Giving up some individual power for the good of a team or group endeavor is type of institutional self-sacrifice that is the cornerstone of most successful organizations. However, the inclusion in any form of a collective should never require the lowering of personal integrity or abilities to facilitate the aggrandizement of a select few. The act of diminishing one’s self to become a sycophant to those posing as leaders is the beginning of a journey toward personal disaster and regretful actions. To this end and in the interest of a mutually healthy relationship, any group, team or organization must be able to demonstratively show a perspective member the advantages that coincide with joining.

I was once in a relationship with a woman whose entire family were believers and avid followers of the organization called EST. The basis of EST movement revolved around self-actualization and the internal ability to transform any life into a productive and rewarding experience. I would often argue with the family about the physical and intellectual limitations inherent in most people’s existence but they believed in limitless possibility for all. This discourse went on for some time until I finally agreed to attend a meeting and listen to the proponents of the EST concepts first-hand. 

One Saturday afternoon we all went to a big meeting hall for me to hear what the leaders of these teachings had to say. The hall was filled with hundreds of people laughing and cheering as the meeting began. Shortly into the rally the moderator stopped the ceremony to ask those of us who were not officially in the EST family to leave the hall and go into a back room with a mentor. He apologized for not having us go immediately but I knew immediately that this was a tease to help with the selling of the program.

Once sequestered in the small anti-room we were introduced our mentor. The man now in charge of our little group was well-dressed and confident. He half-sat on a slightly raised stool and looked down on us as he regaled us with his story of amazing personal growth; all of which he attributed to EST. Most of the presentation focused on his financial success and his story was having a positive effect on the group. Every once in a while the raucous noise from the main hall would filter into our room causing most of those in our group, who had been excluded, to become antsy. They were becoming increasingly eager to rejoin the big group, the people like our mentor who were happy and wealthy. Before long the mentor transformed himself into a salesman and told us that we could now go to the back of the room and for $600 we could sign up for the next indoctrination. Once the financial transaction was completed we could go back into the large hall filled with the happy people. Everyone in the room immediately popped out of their chairs and reached for their checkbooks; everyone except me. I sat still and looked at the man in the front who menacing returned my stare perched above me on his stool. He coldly inquired as to why I was not signing up and I told him that I already possessed what he was selling. He quickly tried to convince me that I was afraid of change and then immediately questioned my ability to understand. When I rebuffed these two thinly veiled personal attacks, two things happened. First, out of the corner of my eye I could see that a couple people at the sign-up table had turned away from those accepting payments to listen to my objections. Second, I was immediately escorted out of the building before I could negatively influence the people who were paying money to join. The powers that controlled the message needed to eliminate all dissent to maintain the order of the small group writing checks; the poor souls who desperately hungered for inclusion.  

In every childhood, there are moments in which children seek to be included in a group or activity; it could be a role in the class play, a roster spot on a team or as simple as a seat at a particular table in the lunch room. Most institutions responsible for the environment in which children develop are aware of the positivity of inclusion and the harmful effects of exclusion. With this in mind they attempt to create specific structures to ensure that all of the children experience the warmth of belonging. But all circumstances cannot be under constant surveillance by adults and children often times feel the sting of being excluded. There are many reasons why children get left out in the cold. Some are reasonable, after all there can only be so many people in the play or on the team. While other exclusions are more akin to a “Lord of the Flies” environment of the unsupervised portion of the social lives of young people. Children get excluded because of physical appearance, race, economic status, and a whole host of other mean and ridiculous reasons. It leaves many deeply scarred and causes pain which continually manifests itself throughout adulthood. These traumatic memories associated with exclusion informs the emotional need to be included. This desperate state of mind causes people to blindly join and then follow the leadership of flawed and even dangerous groups, religions, cults, gangs, and cliques of all kinds. 

The key to exposing this flawed approach is to transform this emotionally driven need into an intellectually well-reasoned want. While it would seem to be contrary and selfish to ask what an institution can do to enhance the life of an individual, it is a reasonable ask. The decision to join an organization must in part be based on personal value added and quality recognized. Any institution, team or organization worth being a member of must conversely show tangible reasons for an outsider to seek the inclusion of formal or informal membership. Using this mutually beneficial model and intellectual power to transform an emotional need into a reasonable want, the choice of joining any group or organization can be whittled down to one compound question. Why do I want to be included and how will inclusion benefit me?