I believe normality means something different to different people. Normality, in other words, is familiarity or ordinariness. Normality is when you are familiar with something specific or some situation which is ordinary to you, but some situations or things that might seem ordinary to you might be unusual for somebody else and might make them uncomfortable. This again, proves my point that normality for everybody is totally different.

I live in Pakistan and for me the Pakistani culture of eating biryani, the hot weather and the colourful buses is ordinary and a part of normality for me. But if I have to move to Canada, the weather and the culture there would not be normal for me and it would be unusual. At the same time, if someone from Canada were to move to Pakistan, the Pakistani culture would be unusual for them. Normality for everyone doesn’t stay the same — it changes with time.

For instance, my school’s environment, teachers, students, my friends and the classes are all normality for me. But if I were to switch schools, there would be different teachers, different expectations, different students and different friends. As time would go by, I would get comfortable with my friends, and understand and normalise with the teachers and their expectations.

Normality is not something you just find on the sidewalk; normality is something you must create within every situation. Life is full of changes, you must learn to normalise them. As Vincent Van Gogh once said, “Normality is a paved road: it’s comfortable to walk on, but no flowers grow.”

Normality is a paved road you are most familiar with and sometimes you have to move away from the easy paved comfortable road, your ‘normal life’ and enter a rocky road to allow changes to come to you, to adapt to them and make them normal.

If you continue with life on the paved road and move away from the rocky road, which has all the changes and new things, you will find yourself running in a hamster wheel. Yes, it will be normal for you, but you will never experience a greater sense of strength and self-reliance if you don’t take the rocky road.

Personally, I am afraid of change. Just thinking about change in life really stresses me out. But on the other hand, I hate too much normality. So, the best way for me to always keep my day eventful is to try something new every day, it could be anything from eating sushi to using new words in my essays. Just remember, anything you choose can be made a normality. For example, I used to eat these specific salted chips, but one day when I went to the store, they had run out. I was disappointed, but I decided to try a new flavour. At first, the new flavour of chips felt unusual but, as time went by and I ate more of those chips, I got used to it. I allowed it to become normal for me because I stepped onto the rocky road with an open mind, ready to accept change.

This shows that normality is whatever you choose to make normal. Always be open to changes and when you allow changes to take place with an open mind, they will become the new normal for you.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 30th, 2020