Why it is okay to be normal.

This article might as well be the least interesting one I’ve ever written but I’ve personally had the most fun researching for this article, so even if I don’t get many page views I still took something away from this.

‘Normal’ has seen much bashing in our society. We have everyone telling us we should want more. More is good and the more stuff we own the happier we’ll be. We’ve reached a point in history that the human race is so well off (believe it or not we are living in the most peaceful and prosperous duration of mankind’s existence) that being normal is a sign of mediocrity. We see success gurus telling us to “aim higher” that “we are able to do anything”  and we need to be able to achieve “true success”.

 

Let’s be honest, you’ll probably lead a very normal life. You’ll land a 9-5 job, fall in love , marry , have kids and so on. Why do so many of us see this as the life of a failure or a man who has never dreamed?. Success is relative. This is one truth that most “success gurus” fail to tell you. Don’t get me wrong making a fuckton of money is still viewed to be pretty darn successful but that isn’t the only thing that makes you a success. I am not the type of person who’ll tell you that “money doesn’t matter” cause it does. Being poor is a guaranteed way to lead a miserable life and the aforementioned cliche is just a way for poor people to validate that their life isn’t so bad.

One fine day a guitarist was kicked out of his band. He didn’t really know why,  but he was fuming the band had just landed its first record deal and he was out. He vowed to make the band pay by being more successful than they ever were. He organised another band and started working his ass off. The musician was Dave Mustaine and the band went on to become Megadeth the death metal band that sold more than 25 million copies worldwide. Unfortunately for Dave the band that kicked him out was Metallica and they’ve sold more than a 100 million copies worldwide. Dave still views himself as a failure despite being a millionaire rockstar adored my millions of fans globally as he only see’s himself as the guy who got kicked out of Metallica. Pete Best took a different approach, He was kicked out of ‘The Beatles’ when they just started to take off. While he did live a part of his life bitter about being kicked off, he accepted his failure, started working as a civil servant has a wonderful family and is adored by everyone he knows. Although his story isn’t as remarkable as Dave’s , Pete is a much more happier individual and now sees his experience of getting kicked off ‘The Beatles’ as positive one. Who do you think is more successful?

When I was ten my mother wanted me to play the piano. She wanted me to play the piano for the choir at church. And my cousins were learning it so I thought, why not?. I used to imagine myself playing the piano in front of thousands of people and the applause at the end. What I didn’t factor into my equation is the amount of hours and work I needed  to put in to to make it possible. When I was thinking of the applause I thought the hard work as a phase of a montage something that gets over in a jiffy after an initial setback. Oh boy was I wrong , I sucked at playing the piano, period. It didn’t interest me in the slightest bit but my parents wouldn’t let me quit as it wasn’t the ‘winners way’(lol wut?). Finally our move to Kochi led to the end of my piano lessons and boy am I glad that it did. Most people will say I was a failure for quitting, that I didn’t have it in me. Bullshit, What happened was I thought I wanted something and turns out I didn’t. I was 10 for crying out loud!. The point is you have to fall in love with the process, You need to love the day to day. You need to be willing to be able to put in hours of mind numbing hours of work and still want to do more. The only thing I’ve learned from years of interacting with people better than me is to love the day to day. That accomplishing extraordinary things is to do something ordinary daily and consistently. Arnold Schwarzenegger said he lifted weights initially for 5 hours a day every day every week every month. Ray Kroc the father of McDonald’s stated that the only thing that made him or McDonald’s successful was persistence and his love for the day to day.

So what are we supposed to do? Accept the reality that we’ll probably never be satisfied and never leave the bed?. Mark Manson in his book “The subtle art of not giving a fuck ” said something that deeply resonated with me personally. It stated “The desire for more positive experience was a negative experience and paradoxically , the acceptance of one’s negative experience is itself a positive experience”. Accepting your mediocrity and that you probably won’t be the next  Zuckerberg is gonna be an initially sour experience, But moving forward by accepting your mediocrity and knowing you can be much better can lead to way better results that just aiming to be great. But what do I know? :).