Ross Raymond Nunamaker

I was reading an article today and in it was a good reminder: normal does not mean perfect. Conversely, being perfect is not normal.

Normal is determined by comparing one thing to a representative sample. That is all.

A normal life is far from a perfect life. A normal body is far from a perfect body. A normal mind is far from a perfect mind.

Normal is a comparison to a sample. Perfect is a comparison you make to a thing defined by you or others that may or may not be attainable.

A religious person may declare God to be perfect and we can strive to be like God, but we can never be God. Therefore it is good to strive for perfection, but one can not expect to ascertain it.

For me, I’m not concerned with perfection, nor am I with normal as the first compares me to something unattainable and the second compares me to others who I likely don’t want to be like in the first place.

Instead, I compare who I am now to who I want to be.

The trick I found in doing this is defining who I want to be. Often we want to be in a role or in a position. I want to be a father, I want to be a CEO, I want to be a lottery winner. These are achievable and they end. What happens next? What do you need after you get what you want?

This was troublesome until I realized goals were the problem. The roles became goals to be achieved. The nature of goals is to keep setting goals. Why? Well there’s a goal for you to achieve and you don’t want to fail, so you do it. And then what? Another goal of course.

You see, you can’t win. If you reach your goal you set a new one and if you don’t you are a failure and you set a new one.

My alternative is not to consider myself in terms of a role or position, but instead by what I do.

At the end of each day I ask myself, ‘did I get the sleep and nutrition my body needs?’; ‘did I get a core physical activity done?’; ‘did I engage in scholarship (read, write, research, and think creatively)?’; and ‘did I build and maintain a relationship?’

Through these efforts tasks can be accomplished and goals achieved, but they are not how I perceive my personal success.    If I’ve done these four things I’ve satisfied what I need to do to be living a life well lived for me, and that is being successful.

It simplifies and clarifies how I want to live and reduces my anxiety, because I am not trying to meet other people’s goals and expectations.

So does normal matter? Normal matters if you confuse it with perfection and perceive yourself to be abnormal, causing insecurity and depression. Normal also matters in the sense that if you are normal you are not living in a manner that satisfies who you are and how you want to live, you are instead living in a manner that gives you comfort in knowing you are not doing better or worse than others in like situations, which will ultimately leave you unsatisfied with how you are living your life.

In closing, understanding normal matters, but being normal should not be desired.