The Tyranny of the ‘Normal’

I recently had one of ‘those’ landmark birthdays.  You know, one of those numbers I had previously thought was way out in the future and couldn’t possibly happen to me.  Well, it happened.

And so (I should have known better: the same sort of thing happened following the death of my first wife) I let it affect me for about two weeks—hence the gap in my Omnium-Gatherum output.  But now I’m over it. 

If you were ‘normal’–and I always thought I was in many respects—you  probably had a stereotype of the age you thought—unless you were in complete denial and wouldn’t allow yourself to think of it at all—would forever categorize you and define you and thereby in reality dictate what you could and could not do. And it was what you could not do (so you thought) that gave you the heartburn. 

  

Well, if you go by the normal—meaning the mean or the statistical average of others in your age category you may be right.

But I have learned that you don’t have to buy in to the definition—the old definition.  You do not have to be tyrannized by the ‘normal.’

What I have learned is that at whatever age you are in you can be an ‘outlier’ at the right side of the bell-shaped curve—at least in things that really matter.

    

What I have learned is that you can redefine the term.  You do not have to let a number be your limitation.  ‘Their’ performance does not have to be your performance.

Since the essence of life is overcoming the challenges of life, I say with Joshua following the time of Moses, 

“And now, behold, the Lord hath kept me alive. . . these __ years. . . as yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me: as my strength was then, even so is my strength now. . . both to go out, and to come in.  Now therefore give me this mountain” (Joshua 14:10-12).

Whereas this great man, now old, had deserts to contend with before, he now had a mountain and he said, ‘Bring it on!’ I like that attitude. 

How did Joshua come to that attitude?  The same way I have come to that attitude—the way I indicated over three years ago when I started this writing project—by recognizing that I did not get to this point alone and I will not be alone in the future—I will continue to stand on the ‘shoulders of giants.’ A giant can carry you a long way. 

  

 “Have not I commanded thee?  Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed; for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest” and for however long He calls you to go (Joshua 1:9). 

I may not be ‘Forever Young,’ but I can be ‘forever strong.’ 

 

So, thank you.  I did have a happy birthday. 

May you have one too—the next time it comes around; it won’t be long.