During the orientation for my graduate school program, one of the presenters mentioned "normal" in terms of data. What is normal? Normal is the absence of outliers. Normal is a point on a graph that hangs with all the rest. She said to us, "normal just means average." Have you ever thought of that before? If you have, kudos for thinking critically. However, if you're like me, you may have never thought of normal in terms of a negative.
I think on some level we all strive to be normal, to just blend into the crowd, to go along living life unnoticed. The concept of "normal" is something I especially have struggled with. I've always wanted to be normal, who doesn't? We all shy away from being labeled different, strange, and odd. But for some reason I have also been unsettled with normal, perhaps because I realize it's something I'm not. I like jamming to Ke$ha like it's going out of style. I like drinking green smoothies everyday for breakfast. I am intense and ask nosy, prodding, deep questions the first time I meet someone. My sneezes and laughs are louder than most. There are few things in the world I am more passionate about than access to educational opportunities and Ohio State football. I consist entirely of abnormalities, and this is something I am coming to terms with.
When looking up the word normal in a dictionary, one finds that common synonyms are regular, usual, unexceptional, commonplace, run-of-the-mill and ordinary. This specific idea has been a topic of conversation recently with a few friends. I don't want to use my time to live an ordinary life where I do ordinary things. The last thing I want to be is regular and to live unexceptionally. However self-serving it may sound, I mean it genuinely. I believe in The Plan. I believe in purpose. I believe that you and I are meant for more than average. I want to use the time and skills and weird quirks that I have to push boundaries, to make connections, to truly make the world a better place, and to do more than has been done before. I choose not to fear the abnormal, because it makes us uniquely capable to do what others cannot, or more often, will not. We all have dreams and hopes and passions, and it's in taking that leap, the push, the challenge, to step up and stand out, to be more that takes a regular life and turns into something extraordinary. That's what takes guts. I am firmly bound to the idea that there's more out there for each of us than merely existing. We were created to be more than ordinary.
So embrace the you-ness that makes you weird and defines you as different, for it's those qualities that makes you most valuable. I hope you'll join me in embracing being uncommon and unusual by attempting to live as anything but ordinary.
