Normal is a Very Big Playing Field

A quick reflection on the whole idea of "normal".

I'm working with a client whose organization provides housing services for thousands of homeless people in the City of San Francisco. As we met today for the first time to discuss some team development work for her director staff, I had a chance to walk with her through her "hood" as she called it. It struck me how we are surrounded by so many people that lead very different lives than us and who we don't often even take notice of most of the time. While the homeless people we saw were in many respects different than my client, she didn't see them as "not normal". They were just the people her organization helps on a daily basis.

So what is normal?

Most of us live with an internal struggle. Each of us yearns to be different, special, an individual. At the same time, we don’t want to lean too far out of the tree—we also want to fit in, be accepted…be normal.

But what does it mean to be normal? Even experts struggle with the word; medical textbooks use words such as “usual” and “not ill” and “conforming to a cultural norm.” However, what is usual to one group of people—tattooing, to give one example—may be completely weird and repulsive to another group. Does that make it normal or abnormal?

The real danger comes in labels—the ones we put on each other and the ones we call ourselves. People who don’t fit in are often labeled as abnormal or different, and that stigma can eat into their feelings of self-worth and belonging. Our culture, with its narrow definitions and media depictions of the “right” way to be, doesn’t help.

We harm ourselves when we agonize that something we feel, believe in, dream about or just wear on our bodies is not normal, or when we feel shame and hide things.

Normal is a very big playing field and most of us fit somewhere on that field.

So the next time you might not be feeling "normal", just remember that you are in good company.