Different as the new normal
What is normal? It’s what is accepted and expected. It’s also what doesn’t surprise or challenge us.
What is normal? It’s what is accepted and expected. It’s also what doesn’t surprise or challenge us.
We seek normal in a lot of instances. We’ve often heard many voice their eagerness for things to go back to normal during the pandemic; I include myself in that. This thinking often holds us in patterns of staleness as we wait.
And yet, the deviation from normal has pushed us to create new ways of working, going beyond what we thought possible before.
Where has normal gotten us?
Normal has us clinging to the status quo, to the familiar, and often refusing to accept new ideas. We’re so eager to defend it that we’re unwilling to look at how things might be different and still move forward, and often for the better.
Normal is a breeding ground for judgment and prejudice. We judge what differs and deviates from it. The deviation is at the root of some of our most significant issues, such as sexism, racism, inequality, and violence.
Robin DeAngelo talks about the deviation from the norm in her book White Fragility. I highly recommend her book as it does challenge us to take on a different perspective.
The system wants and needs us to fit in. It’s far easier for the system when we do. It doesn’t have to acknowledge us, see us and even know we are there. As long as we fit in, the system continues to work.
The problem with that is that none of us are normal. We’re all different, and that denial is the cause for a lot of the discrimination we face.
What if we embraced different? The chance to be and think differently for ourselves and others? Respecting others for who they are and giving the gift of truly seeing them.
How might our organizations excel? How might our collaborations improve, and what might we learn from each other?
Different inspires growth, acceptance and peace. If different was the new norm, we might struggle less to connect.
Normal is overrated; how might we be different together?
Miguel,
Sparknotion – Think Differently.
