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Today's
Meditation:
In
our family, "Weird is good." Whenever one
of us does something that goes against the norm or that
seems to be a bit strange, we tell that person,
"You're so weird!" And the response is
always, "Yeah, and weird is good!"
In
this way we allow ourselves to stray from the normal-- and
not just to stray from it, but to embrace the abnormal,
the different, the unusual. In the regular things of
life, there's very little-- if anything-- left to be
discovered. Because so many people strive to be
"regular" every day of their lives, they take
away the new and the extraordinary from that regular side
of life, and they convert it into the boring and the
usual. Mediocrity rules in the regular because the
regular doesn't encourage us to take chances or to move in
new directions or to try to find the new and
extraordinary.
Our
whole lives long, we're encouraged to be regular by
teachers, parents, friends, relatives, and other members
of society. If we're "regular" kids, we
won't embarrass our parents. If we're regular in the
classroom, the teacher won't face any new or different
challenges.
There
are times when being regular can be valuable. My
employer would like it if I can maintain a certain degree
of regularity in my job. My step-kids would
appreciate it if I'm regular in my financial dealings so
that they don't face serious financial problems in their
future.
But
regular doesn't have to rule our lives. There's much
of the extraordinary out there in the world, and if we're
to find it, then we have to look for it. And we
can't do that by settling for mediocrity and boring status
quos.
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