Normal

I constantly hold myself up against the yardstick we call "normal" and find myself sadly lacking. This makes me wonder if there is such a thing as normal. I'm no scientist so you can take my wonderings for what they are: unscientific observations of myself and those around me.

We each are the product of thousands of years of genetic mutation so perhaps my lack of normal is in my genes. I am painfully aware of the odd assortment of folks among my ancestors - overachievers and underachievers; kind hearted saints and devilishly cruel rascals; engineers and artists; business owners and farmers; stable upstanding citizens and excessive risk takers; herbivores and carnivores; developmentally disabled geniuses and down to earth thinkers; loud obnoxious extroverts and quiet loving introverts; emotionally balanced sages and those who can barely cope; conservatives and liberals; competitive athletes and couch potatoes; realists and dreamers; eccentrics and conformists - I could go on for weeks.

With such a fruit basket full of traits, how do I have any chance of being normal? Does anyone? Maybe the problem is not the oddities in our genes, but our perception of what is normal.