Unpacking Normal - Part 2

18 Sep
2018

Posted by Evolve College News

We Have Lost Something Very Important....

This week we continue our series on unpacking what is ‘normal’ in our lives. We look at how the definition of ‘normal’ has in fact deteriorated over time. 

In the busy-ness of our lives, we have lost something very important - something that used to matter in the days of our ancestors. Grandparents now deceased used to talk about that something – and say it was what mattered the most. And that something, is what we seem to have let go. 

That something, is quality of life.

Quality of life is not found in a body that is incapable of doing the things it really wants to do. And nor is it found in an exhausted body, a body without natural vitality, a body without true joy sustained on a day to day basis. It is also not found in one managing their conditions, their symptoms and just managing to ‘get by’ from day to day. This, and all the many other flavours of the same thing, are not what we should be calling quality of life.  

We have certainly set our standard pretty low – as at present we settle for mere function as being the baseline, and in doing so we have cast out the window the true quality we could have, should we decide to make different choices. 

So what choices are we actually talking about here? 

Choices, in effect, boil down to responsibility – the level of responsibility we want to take. We can take a flippant or indulgent approach and say – “Stuff it, as long as I get my tick boxes ticked during the day, and then the rewards of my choice at night or over the weekend, I don’t actually care”.  Sound familiar? That, effectively is how most of us actually live, if we care to admit it. But is that responsible? 

The fact is, it isn’t. 

But we all pretend it is, because we have settled for a world centred around function. As long as the machine keeps going (i.e. ‘life’ as we call it keeps on rolling), then we say that is fine. Because, the fact is, we’re not asking for anything more. 

What if we long ago gave up a natural vitality and real spark or joy and spunk in life – like we see in young kids. Do any of us remember what it was like as a really young child and the effervescent, never ending spark and energy we seemed to have? We also listened to our bodies, well, most of the time, and we knew when we had to rest.