It is nearly impossible to be ‘normal’ and bring change in any organization or society. A catalyst, even in Chemistry, is not normal. It is different from other substances, that is why it is called catalyst. It accelerates change.
From the family unit, to residents/landlord association, to community association, to age grade unions, to political leadership, to religious leadership, to traditional leadership, to global leadership, those who can bring change, possess some form of abnormalities. They are usually characterized as abnormal. There is always a little something about them that their contemporaries do not have. They are different.
For instance, any traditional leader that will have the courage to change or alter an age long traditional practice has to be different in thinking from his ancestors who started it. Any General or Admiral that must change a long standing tradition of the military must be different and distinguished from the stock. Any religious leader that can alter archaic and out of sync religious practices, must be different and not ‘normal.’
Any political leader that will bring change to their community or country, must be different and not normal. Any athlete that has ever broken the records was different and not ‘normal’. Every global leader whether in academics or in industry or technological advancement or in the struggle for the advancement of humanity generally, who has stood-out and brought any epochal leap, had to be different and not ‘normal’.
From birth; as we straddle through the maze of life, across elementary to high school, to advanced level, we are indoctrinated to be ‘normal’. To conform with norms and tenets, whether in our social or professional lives. We are given boundaries in all aspects of our lives. All our days, there are basic acceptable standards of behaviors and thinking that is expected of us, to be regarded as law abiding. Anyone who doesn’t uphold these accepted standards in any society is usually regarded as an outlaw and anti-society.
Having gone through this process, it is normal for normal people to carry within them, a normal seed of resistance to change. Normal people cannot conceive the seed of change and the reason is simple, they are normal! The make-up of normal people is so very chronologically choreographed by decades of conscious training and absorption that, any semblance of novelty thinking triggers an ever ready ‘resist’ button within them.
Look around you, even within your family and within your work or business colleagues, those who are raising their voices and talents for change are not normal. They are misunderstood. They are scorned. They are vilified. They are even hated. They are victimized. They are called arrogant. This happens because others cannot find their kind in them. These categories are few in numbers. In all circumstances, they are always in the micro minority.
Lastly, methinks that it is a well considered decision of God that the normal people should far outnumber those that are not normal. That’s because, if the opposite were the case, there will be turmoil in society. The comforting conclusion however, is that one group cannot do without the other and vice versa. The two have always, and will have to always work in tandem, in order to bring change to any society that desires to grow. We walk together, or perish together!
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
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