I hate when I have to introduce myself to a new group of people or in-front of a
class and there’s always that one extra question in the introduction. Yes, you
know which one. “Please give your name, hometown, age, and one interesting fact about yourself.” It always seems like all the
other people I’m around have an endless list of creative characteristics about
their exotic lives. But for me, I’m stuck anxiously searching my brain for at
least one legitimate interesting aspect of who I am. I usually just go for the
“I can do the moonwalk” response, which in reality I can barely even come close
to accomplishing. And the fact that I only have one go-to response demonstrates
something. I am the definition of normal.
Let me give an
overview of why I feel I am this way. First, I am a blue-eyed blonde. Just the
prevalence of hearing that phrase suggests how common my look is. People
consistently confuse me for someone they know, because my face is probably so
generic. Second, I am five feet and five inches tall, also very average, with
the most typical body shape one can think of. I come from a family with a mom, a dad, one
brother, and one sister, can you get more normal? Oh, and we have a cat. But
the icing on the cake is my name, Sarah Smith. There are currently thirteen of
us enrolled at Ohio University alone.
Sure, most people would absolutely
kill to feel normal, to blend in with the room, to go unnoticed. But in
reality, it stinks; there are side effects to normalcy, too. My whole life I’ve
been completely predictable and have just always gone with the flow. No one was
ever surprised by an action or decision I made.
In grade school, this flowing was an easy task and things seemed to go
fairly smoothly for me. Never was I called down to the principal’s office and I
always seemed to do just fine in all my classes. But all this passing by and
blending led me to believe that I wasn’t special. Even though I was able to
enjoy school, I did not understand the possible outcomes of what my mindset of
being so unoriginal could be. Being normal and not unique was easy; and at a
young age, I was completely okay with it.
Looking toward myself as boring
always seemed to go unnoticed, until I came to college. They say that college
is the place where you are supposed to “find yourself.” It is a time where
students take the classes they want and learn anything they want. Also, they
are finally independent. Their minds are entirely their own. Many people grow and change throughout their
college years and when I approached the start of my freshman year, I was hoping
I would be one of those people; especially since I was entering with my blank
slate. Obviously, as my normal boring self, I was undecided. There was no major
that I was dying to be. And for someone who had few strong interests, hobbies,
or goals, I was entering as a nervous wreck with no clue where I wanted to go
in life. My naïve conviction led me to feel that I was the only individual out
there in such a situation; since all of my friends from home had their lives
planned out since the 7th grade. And so came my freshman year.
This is when I met my roommate Ana*.
She was the complete opposite of me, and the definition of exotic that I was
not. She was a dance major who was born in Macedonia, fluently speaking
Macedonian, French, and English. With her exotic sexy looks and booming
personality, I turned into her servant. I went along with all that she said,
thinking this was how it had always been growing up as well. Even if I didn’t
want to go out that night or stay up till four AM watching television, I would
end up being roped into her plans as her “best friend” should. However, such
results of me feeling like nothing interesting went unnoticed for quite some
time. My mindset led me to believe it was okay to be treated in such a manner. And
even though Ana was the worst, it seemed to be occurring with many of the other
people I interacted with, classmates or people down the hall as well. I would
let others borrow things, and when they would not return them, I would simply
be too nervous to stand up and ask for things back. I would never express my
opinion or feelings, because I felt that they meant nothing to others; and from
my experience, it truly seemed like they did. I guess you could say I was the
person who listened to what everyone else said and never truly spoke myself. And
it continued to broaden with the men I was surrounding and associating myself
with. In my body I felt so dull that I thought that it was okay to be treated
in such ways. I was boring and nothing out of the ordinary, so why should I be
treated special then?
By mid freshman year, I was low as low could be. I was
not making any decisions for myself. I did as those around me did. I felt that
being so generic meant that I just had to go with the flow, do as others told
me. I had fully lost any respect for myself as an individual. This was because
at that point I didn’t even recognize myself as an individual. My identity was
practically just what others wanted to mold it to be. And at the time, I was
okay with it. Looking back now, I feel this was because I was blind to how
other people were treating me. From that mindset, I believed it was simply okay
to be walked all over and to never stand up for myself. I was the average girl,
thus it was normal for me to be treated as one. The website “EmpowHER.com” published
an article about the self-respect issues that I was going through at the time;
they state that “low self-respect often leads to
diminished efforts to take advantage of opportunities to actualize your own
potential” (Rheyanne Weaver). By not respecting myself, I was falling into
these exact issues. I was not living up to who I could truly be because I was
only doing what others told me to.
Finally I met someone who opened my
eyes, and thank goodness I did. I met my current boyfriend midway through my
freshman year when my “normalness” mindset was leading me to the worst
consequences. He showed me how I truly should be treated, as an individual. I
was not just part of the crowd; I was a true person who deserved true respect,
from others and from myself. He made me
realize that I need to speak for myself, express how I feel, and through that,
I can be who I honestly am.
In today’s world, I am sure there
are many other females out there who have experienced the same situation as me.
We find ourselves lost in the crowd, because that is how we have been brought
up, to normalize ourselves and blend with the rest of society. However, being
perfectly normal is not all it’s cracked up to be. Like myself, there are many
other females out there who have strived to be normal. Yet, in normality, you
tend to lose yourself. Once you are just like everybody else, how are you still
yourself? Thus from my own experience my freshman year, I have slowly
discovered the outcomes of attempting to be normal and seeing oneself as just a
normal person. For me, it led to allowing others to control and drive my life
for me. By seeing myself as nothing special and convinced myself it was okay
for others to treat me negatively.
My fear is that society is making “normal” too common and important of a
goal in life. Conforming to society seems to be everyone’s final aspiration.
This is easily seen from many of the pieces assigned in my English class. Many of
them involved unique and different individuals who had their own specific
characteristics. However, the articles seemed to discuss their struggle in
attempting to reach normalcy. For example, the writer Regina Williams reflects “I
was never allowed to forget that no amount of brains or talent could cover up
that I was fat, and, therefore, unacceptable, undesirable and essentially good
for nothing” (Williams 177). Her struggle to reach a so-called “normal weight”
led her to forget the other qualities that should be more significant to her
life. A similar fight with normalcy occurred for Puerto Rican Judith Ortiz
Cofer as she struggled to be similar to the bigger, whiter students at her
public schools; she states that “still, I wanted to be wanted” (Ortiz Cofer
305). Because of society’s normalcy goals, these individuals grew up hoping to
change their identity to warp it into the cookie cutter American. Even though
their experiences with normalcy seemed to come from the opposite end of mine,
the reality is how much this societal concept of normalcy affects us.
For Williams and Cofer, if they had reached their socialized goals of
normalcy, they would most likely have lost their own identities in the process.
Eventually, they would have been placed in the same boat with me, going along
with the rest of society and no longer acting for themselves. Thus I see this
as a truly disparaging concept in our society. Why are we trained through our
lives to be normal? All through grade school it was good thing for me to blend
and go along with the flow; from the very start we are meant to realize that
there is a certain average that we should all strive for. But making all of
society be as one has terrible outcomes on the individual, as they try to shed
all aspects of themselves that separate them from the societal standard.
There needs to be a renewal of the individual. For Williams, Cofer, and
myself, normalcy was what we felt was the right thing. It led them to want to
change who they were and it led me to allowing myself to be treated as “normal.”
I am concerned that the more society forces us to blend, the less creative and
questioning we will become. We need to be able to reconnect to the importance
of being, embracing, and respecting oneself.
I am not saying I’m perfect. There
are definitely still days were I feel as if I am just part of the crowd and
forget to recognize myself as just me. It isn’t easy trying to go against what
society has trained us all to be. But it took my experience my freshman year to
understand that normalcy is not what is best for us. What is best for us is to
be ourselves. We must see ourselves as individuals in order to reach the true
full potential that is inside of us. As preachy as it may sound, I honestly feel
that is what is necessary. No two people are a like in this world; society
needs to stop trying to make us into one. It is very significant to be able to
embrace and eventually use those unique qualities we all have. For some like
me, it might not be as obvious to find them, but they are there. And from my
own experience and reflection, I have realized that being normal isn’t what we
need. Society is wrong. We need individuals.
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