What We Call Normal

A reflection on the human tendency to adapt to everything, even things that don't serve us.

Humans have this incredible capacity to endure. To move through things that are uncomfortable—if not downright painful. And, just in case that weren’t enough, we’re capable of doing it for far longer than we should.

This resilience, while admirable, often leads to one of the most alarming outcomes: normalization.

We take what was once a red flag, a call to action, and transform it into something that simply becomes “just the way things are.” It’s not that the pain has lessened—it’s that our relationship to it has changed. It becomes woven into our daily lives. It begins to erode us or define us.

Off the top of my head, here are just a few experiences I notice people normalize:

• Disrespect

• Accepting the bare minimum

• Walking on eggshells

• Being unhappy

• Feeling empty

• Betraying ourselves

• Lacking meaning in our lives

• Cyclical arguments

• Giving more than we have

• Feeling bad about our bodies

• Saying mean things to ourselves

• Managing someone else’s mood

• Half-assing our work

• Staying silent when we should speak up

• Having our boundaries violated

• Showing up as the worst version of ourselves

• Giving people multiple chances they don’t intend to use

• Ignoring our intuition and/or our body

This ability to make dysfunction feel normal doesn't serve us—unless it's tied to raw survival. More often, it causes us to ignore or suppress the alarms that once screamed, until they become little more than a distant hum. And if we continue to ignore the need for change, we begin to believe this is just what life is.

Instead of co-creating our life with existence itself, we become passive observers—victims to its whims. (And to be clear: yes, people can become victims. Trauma plays a massive role in shaping this mindset. But this letter isn't about that. It's for the rest of us—the ones who have normalized things without needing to.)

So I’ll leave you with this:
- What have you normalized that didn’t used to feel normal at all?
- Which alarms have you silenced?
- What parts of your “this is just life” narrative aren’t actually true?

I see this happen in relationships, in workplaces, in family dynamics. And while suffering is an inevitable part of the human experience, not all of it is. Some of it is avoidable. And some of it we quietly inflict on ourselves.

I got to see Michelangelo’s David yesterday in Florence. It lived up to the hype. It was glorious. It was beautiful. I probably spent two hours in the gallery, constantly catching glimpses of it from different angles. I was intrigued by every chiseled curve of the stone and every decision the artist made. And still, by the time I left, the awe had ever so slightly subsided—the beauty had become… normal.

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