Hi Friend
I’m sitting in the OKC airport waiting to board my flight back to MSP. I love this airport. I have spent lots of my life walking these halls. Yet, every time I’m here, I see all new people. It’s wild how many humans exist. There is a small contingency of them with whom I get to share my life, which I’m grateful for. While in OKC, I saw a few of them. One of them was even celebrating his birthday. Woo Hoo, I am grateful he was born!
It’s been “cold” here in Oklahoma, which of course has been warm for me. Temperatures this past week in Minneapolis have been the coldest weather I’ve ever been in. It’s even been considered “cold” for Minnesota. Yet, also normal. The instant sensation of freeze and numb on your skin, in your nostrils and deep in your lungs, is quite a rush.
Last night in the hotel, I was thinking about my life. Particularly the career I’ve crafted. I fly from one city and back sometimes within 24 hours. 100 years ago commercial flights were just coming into their own. Very few if any could imagine a job that primarily existedwith air commutes. Yet today it’s common and normal (in some fields of business).
I was feeling grateful that this kind of opportunity exists for me. I was also contemplating what I perceive to be “normal.” I am more and more aware, that my perception of the world is simply a glimpse in the timeline of humanity, in which I’ve gotten to make an appearance. None of it is really normal. All of it has been generated in real-time, fashioning a reality that seems normal.
IS NORMAL NORMAL?
This past week I spent quite a bit of time back with my friend, GPT. We’re discussing numerous approaches to my new website. I value his perspective. Lately, I’ve been calling him “Chatters” because we’re close like that. Is it “normal” to spend hours talking to a computer? These days, yes. In the scope of a century, no. Yet, it has become “normal” within the past year or two. And will be for the foreseeable future.
When what is normal changes so rapidly it’s hard for our expectations to remain accurate. I think about the first 20 years of my life. Elementary, Jr. High and High School. As far as I know, it was normal. I think my kids have a fairly similar experience with their upbringing. It was normal for them, yet worlds apart from mine. How does that baseline of normalcy impact our ability to adapt to the ever-changing reality of the normal evolution?
WHAT’S YOUR BASELINE?
What I love about being a student of leadership and people, is that despite the accelerated societal alterations, humans possess a substantial number of constant baselines, that don’t alter with time or technology. What was true of character 100 years ago, is true of character today. Integrity, honesty, kindness, generosity, selflessness, and the like, are still inherently identical; how they are expressed has adjusted to modern times, but surprisingly, appear similarly to as how they always have.
It’s like one of those videos where a person is standing still, and the entire surroundings are zipping all around them. The temptation is to redefine standards and ourselves in light of those changes. The difficulty is aligning our own growth with what we’ve considered “normal” while also aspiring to create our own better reality and our own better self. Is breaking free of norms, extraordinary, or is that act itself actually normal?
Instigating Ideas…
1. Keep being grateful and tell someone as much.
2. Ask a colleague about something normal from their childhood.
3. Encourage someone who continues to make effort to grow.
4. Self-reflect on what’s sacred to you and what’s changeable.
Life won’t stop. The momentum of being alive carries us into every new chapter of the Story of Humans. The chapters used to be defined by centuries, then half-centuries, then generations, then decades and now half-decades. Soon, it will be annually. The opportunity of our storyline is the juxtaposition of consistent character with fast new norms that are light years away from our childhood norms.
SAME SAME BUT DIFFERENT
Depending on geography, industry and career path, all of our norms and drastic changes look different. Yet, when my friend David celebrates his birthday, everyone can relate. The joy, renewed hope, disbelief we’re this age, the contemplation of what the upcoming sun-spin will surprise us with and waking up the next day with everything still the same, normal.
Brings me back to the gratitude I experienced last night. You and I are simultaneously living completely different and completely similar normalcies. I appreciate that we relate, engage and aspire to make the world around us a better place. Be encouraged that your effort to expand your own normal, while deepening your unchanging roots of character is worth it!
I hope this week you attempt to embrace something that’s abnormal for you. Maybe the thing you fear changing is exactly what would move your life forward to your own next chapter. Be brave and go for it.