Normal

It is normal to:

• take and assign responsibility when we have hardly any control over outcomes
• believe that we are right and everyone else is wrong
• go around judging everyone and everything, including ourselves, incessantly
• worry constantly about what others think of us
• create expectations and its counterpart disappointment for ourselves
• identify with our thoughts, even the negative ones, and create an unfriendly narrative in our own minds
• be constantly lost in thought and to disregard our bodies
• search for meaning when meaning is created, not found
• mistake strong emotions for important or meaningful ones
• postpone our happiness to a future moment that never arrives
• focus on possessions, achievements and status and to forget about connection, reflection and well-being
• identify with the voice in our head, even when it is being unkind to us, or arguing with itself
• worry about the future and ruminate about the past, disregarding the only time that ever is: now
• forget that fictions like countries, economies and companies aren’t actually real
• look outward for the cause of our negative emotions when we should be looking in
• do what we think that others expect of us and to forget that we can do absolutely anything that we want
• judge ourselves by our intentions but others by how their actions make us feel
• be slaves to our own thoughts and emotions and to leave no time, space or energy to liberate ourselves
• teach our children how to be productive but not how to be fulfilled
• be the only storytelling and meaning creating species in the universe and to leave our collective stories to profit driven, fictional entities called companies
• be so worried about risk that we minimize all uncertainty, forgetting that uncertainty is the main ingredient of all adventure
• be so busy looking outward that we never look in

There is nothing normal about normal.