What If Normal is the Illusion?
Maybe normal and normalcy are what’s truly weird in the world.
People are always bombarded by the idea of being “normal”. Like this concept is what makes the world go ‘round.
I tried, in my 20s and 30s, to be normal. I took jobs from 9-5 in various industries that were considered normal and necessary. Each of which tended to crush my soul. Corporate America and I did not see eye to eye. My attempts to work a normal job made me shrink from my true self and contributed to my depression.
Likewise, I strove for the perceived normal with relationships. I got in and out of standard monogamous relationships, but they never quite fit me. Worse, I cheated on various lovers along the way and suffered what I called “the grass is always greener” syndrome.
I could give lots of further examples of my failures to be normal. However, instead, I’d like to share what happened when I started embracing not normal choices. When I sought and took jobs that weren’t standard 9-5 gigs, embraced being a creative and writing full-time, and stopped striving for monogamy in relationships and embraced polyamory.
Though this didn’t make me permanently happy or always content, it sure as hell contributed to me having better mental health, living more productively, and becoming truer to myself. When I stopped trying to be, live, and love in normalcy, I found I was better able to be overall.
Everyone has a calling
I recognize that I’m extremely fortunate and that I have a certain degree of privilege not to be taken for granted or disregarded. I’ve not had the struggles others have had, and that’s made it uniquely, relatively “easy” for me to make choices and decisions to not take a normal path.
You might not have the same degree of privilege, but if you’re reading this you have some. Often, privilege is considered bad because of those who abuse it. Like any tool, it’s not the tool but the user that determines if it will be bad or good.
Everyone has a calling. There’s something you have talent and or skill in that you can share with the world in ways that make you content or even happy. Some of these are incredibly mundane, perfectly normal as societally perceived, and that’s awesome if that’s you.
Not fitting into the normal molds of this world doesn’t make you lesser, weaker, or wrong. The drive for normalcy is part of the fear-based society you’re part of. Meet the expectations of normalcy or suffer the consequences including rejection, disenfranchisement, shunning, or worse.
This is simply not true. If it was, then there’d be no music, art, poetry, or tasty food beyond basic nutritional needs. Yet the ideas of normal and the lack, scarcity, and insufficiency tied to not normal are convincing and pervasive.
As always, it’s a matter of choice.
Embrace yourself, normal or otherwise
This essay was inspired by the following quote from Matt Haig and his brilliant work, The Comfort Book.
“Work with what you have. Exist in this world. Be the asymmetric square. Be the wonky tree. Be the real you.”
It’s so easy to not be your real, true, genuine self. Especially if it’s not normal. When you look at the many ideas of what normal is too closely, the truth becomes clear. It’s massively contradictory.
In the United States, you’re told from a young age this is the land of plenty and you can have, be, or do whatever you desire. Then you get a whole swath of people in positions of authority actively working to put limits on that. You’re told you can pull yourself up by your non-existent bootstraps by people who inherited much of what they have or the means to make it. Very few people meet the ideal of “normal”, and what defines normal is incredibly variable. The expectation of normal in New England is very different from the expectation of normal in the Midwest, which are both different from that of the Deep South. I’m fairly certain that all of these are vastly different from normal in other parts of the world, too.
Ergo, the truth is clear. Normal is the illusion.
Embrace your oddities
You are one of 8 billion human beings on this planet. All 8 billion humans perceive reality individually. Though elements of reality are defined and shared in a collective consciousness, perception is utterly individual.
This further drives home the idea of the illusion of normal. Like the idea of one size fits all, normal is similarly presented to you. However, the truth is that one size fits all never fits all, and normal is the same.
You are unique. What you do with that knowledge is entirely up to you. Maybe you are perfectly happy and content to follow, make choices to lead a normal life, and take a path of normalcy. If that works for you, you go with your bad self.
Maybe, like me, you can’t do normal without creating massive discomfort. It’s possible that striving to fit into this mold either breaks the mold or breaks you. How many times will you take this route when all it does is cause you pain and real suffering (over the perceived suffering of not taking the normal path)?
You have the power to make the choices to embrace your oddities. One of the key elements of this, however, is recognizing and accepting that doing so will cause others to perceive you as different. Odd. Weird. Or, in the words of Matt Haig, as a “wonky tree.”
Nobody but you is in your head, heart, or soul. Hence, you alone know what makes you your most true, genuine, and authentic self. The real you. Being the real you might not be in line with normal. There is nothing wrong with that.
Being yourself, no matter how odd or abnormal you might be, empowers you. Empowerment ultimately leads to greater control of your life experience, and that’s good and positive.
Recognizing that normal is the illusion isn’t hard
It’s all about practicing mindfulness of your thoughts, feelings, intentions, and approach to direct your actions.
When you recognize and acknowledge that normal, and all its variations and inconsistencies, is the greater illusion than not normal, you open yourself more to finding and being your truest, most genuine self. Knowing that you’re the only one in your head, heart, and soul, and that you alone can make choices and decisions to feed that and strive to thrive, you can embrace the not normal and use it to create the life you desire to have and all the good that can come of it.
This empowers you, and your empowerment can empower others around you.
Consciously choosing your approach to life towards positivity or negativity – from the vast cylinder that exists between them – shifts life in a way that opens more dialogue. With a broader dialogue, you can explore and share where you are between the extremes and how that impacts you here and now.
Choosing thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions for yourself employs an approach and attitude of positivity for realizing amazing potential and possibilities for your life.
The better aware you are of yourself in the now, the more you can do to choose and decide how your life experiences will be. When that empowers you, it can spread to those around you to their empowerment.
Thank you for coming along on this journey.
This is the five-hundred and thirty-sixth (536) entry of my Positivity series. I hope that these weekly messages might help spread positive energies for everyone. Feel free to share, re-blog, and spread the positivity.
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