What is ‘normal’ anyway?

It’s funny… when you ask someone what “normal” is, you get a lot of different answers, especially when it comes to raising a family. I’ve been in conversations with people where normal is when the mom stays at home. I’ve heard normal means both parents are working. I’ve even heard normal as a “fend for yourself” upbringing. These folks defend their upbringing as if to say, “Everyone should be raised with absentee parents. It teaches you survival.”

You can turn on the TV to see any number of normal topics on Oprah or any of the other various talk shows. I remember as a kid watching the Phil Donahue Show when he had a group of “normal” men dressed up as babies living out an infancy fantasy. I’ve come to realize that “normal” is only a setting on my clothes dryer. So it’s no wonder there are miscommunication problems as we interact in everyday life. We all walk around sharing our version of “normal” with everyone, with some agreeing with us but many others ending up confused and in some cases responding with jaw-dropping disbelief to our views, as in “That’s normal to you? You must be wacked!” We are often judged and sometimes even fined before we can explain why something is our normal.

The reason we are so judgmental about others is because we pride ourselves on defending our idea of normal. We do this because if we don’t we may wake up one morning realizing we live in the land of abnormal and that is just too scary to fathom. I say let’s strive to understand each other’s normal so we can learn from one another. Let’s drop our radar of prejudgment and take the time to understand. That’s Servant Leadership in the home and in the workplace!

So one last question: Are you normal?

Joe Kiedinger

ACTION PLAN: Be who you are!