[cs_section style=”margin: 0px; padding: 45px 0px; “][cs_row style=”margin: 0px auto; padding: 0px; ” inner_container=”true”][cs_column style=”padding: 0px; ” fade_animation=”in” fade_animation_offset=”45px” fade_duration=”750″ type=”1/1″][cs_text text_align=”left-text”]The movie Tombstone is a classic. It is a great story with great actors having Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday be the ingredient that makes great eggnog even better. It is a movie full of great quotes, many of which come from Doc Holliday. One such quote comes near the end of the movie. Talking with Wyatt Earp on his death bed about what he wanted out of life he says:
Doc Holliday: What did you ever want?
Wyatt Earp: Just to live a normal life.
Doc Holliday: There’s no normal life, Wyatt, it’s just life. Get on with it.
This, I think, is very wise and very true. If we spend our whole life trying to live “normal,” trying to pursue normal things, a normal and fairly easy life we will never achieve our goals. Moreover, we will drive ourselves crazy trying to reach the unobtainable, the imaginary.
Ponder it for a moment. How often are we told what normal is? You are normal if you make this much money, you drive this particular car, you live in this area of the neighborhood, you buy these particular clothes, you act this specific way. Do not think this applies to only those with money, it applies to everyone – from wall street, to main street to the ghetto street. All of these have their specific way to live “normal,” all of which is nonsense. There is no normal life, there’s just life.
The danger of trying to live normally is that when life happens what do you do? Life happened to me – one day I am running a half marathon and next thing I know I am sitting in a doctor’s office hearing I have Multiple Sclerosis. It could be you hearing you have cancer or Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. You could be burying a nineteen year old son or a thirty three year old brother. Life may bring car troubles, unexpected bills, hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, or blizzards. Life just may one day be life to you and if you are heavily invested in “normal” you may not know what to do.
Being able to handle circumstances better is not the only benefit of not being overly invested in normal. It is also in seeing the positive of the situation. It is learning lessons, finding new friends, new family, changing your perspective for the better. My MS diagnosis has helped me to rid myself of the normal delusion and learn to see the beauty in the mess that life gives us. Life is going to happen, we cannot stop it.
This is not to say we should expect the worst, or heaven forbid yearn for it. Gracious no, that is not what this is about at all. It is about realizing and accepting the only normal life there is is just life. Life is easier for some than others. It is not fair in how it deals out reward and punishment. It just is. Because life may not always be fair or easy so it is our job to push toward our goals but not being surprised when life does happen. And when it does happen it is our job to react positively, to take a step back and find out what we can from it.
Life may be life but there is still hope, there is always hope. I have MS, I cannot change that or undo it. It is what it is. But I still have hope for a great life ahead. I may have trouble with some physical activities but I can still try them. Moreover, having it has redirected my life from one direction that would have been a good life to another direction that has potential of being a great life – it is up to me to pursue it with all I have.
Life is life, there is nothing normal about it. Anyone who says otherwise should be approached with caution. While life may bring hard times it is still worth living, it is still worth pursuing. Let us put behind us the idea of a normal life and let us just start living ours out. Let us pursue our goals and dreams. Let us move on from “maybe one day” to “I did.” Let us live as best as we can, taking what happens as it happens. There is no normal life, it’s just life. So let us get on with it!
Attempt it. Chance it. Try it. Get to It![/cs_text][/cs_column][/cs_row][/cs_section]