Welcome to the Buddhist Boot Camp Podcast. Our intention is to awaken, enlighten, enrich, and inspire a simple and uncomplicated life. Discover the benefits of mindful living with your host, Timber Hawkeye. When you look up the dictionary's definition of the word "Normal," it doesn't describe what normal IS, it says "Normal" means CONFORMING to what is typical, usual, or expected. By definition, therefore, nothing and nobody is inherently normal,
some people just choose to conform to social standards. I'm honestly relieved and wish I had looked up the definition when I was younger, because I thought "normal" was how we all start out, but some people just miss the mark. And by "some people," I mean ME.
From a very young age, I was told something was wrong with me because all I wanted to do was stay in my room, read or draw in silent solitude, spend hours building model airplanes out of tiny parts, and learning computer programming code when computers were first introduced. But my parents literally and physically forced me out of the house because they wanted me to play with the other children living on our street
like a "Normal Kid." I remember my dad arriving home from work one evening and finding me sitting outside on the steps. "What are you doing here?" he asked. "Mom locked me out of the house again," I said. I get that my parents just wanted what they thought would be best for me, mainly a life with less ridicule from others and more "fitting in." They had no idea what to do with a little boy who was totally unlike his older sister, who was a social butterfly and always out with her friends.
I wasn't into any of the typical stuff that a parent would expect from a young boy; I was quiet, didn't like getting dirty, was extremely sensitive to noise, preferred being alone, needed things to be very orderly to remain calm, and I couldn't relate to the other kids in school. I was different. I wasn't bad, just different. Any violent outbursts were the result of being forced to do what was so unnatural for me.
I don't blame "Young Me" anymore for being so angry. "It's okay, little buddy, you were "uncomfortable and didn't have the words with which to explain yourself." I tried making friends, but when I did, my parents judged them for being as weird as I was.
There is a character named Sam on a show called Atypical on Netflix, and I've never been able to relate to any character portrayed cinematically more than I can to Sam, who we now know is on the spectrum, but back in my day, kids were either "Normal," or they were considered "Troubled." The harder I tried to fit in, the more inauthentic I felt.
That's why I was thrilled when my parents decided to move to the U.S. when I was just about to start high school; I figured I could reinvent myself, and none of the kids with whom I grew up would be there to make fun of me. Unfortunately, being a foreigner in a new country, not speaking any English, coupled with all the other ways I was already far from typical, only meant it didn't take long
for kids in my new school to make fun of me as well. Sadly, I resorted to doing whatever it took to fit in and win the approval of my peers, parents, and teachers. I was only 13 years old, which in the Jewish tradition, is when a "boy" turns into a "man," so I was on a mission to figure out what "being a man" meant. To be respected by the guys at school, that meant I needed to get laid as soon and as frequently as possible, so I did. I lost my virginity at 13, but I'm not proud of it.
I started sleeping around a lot, but I did it for all the wrong reasons, and I think it really screwed me up for a long time. I continued associating having lots of sex with having true worth and value for the next decade, and slept with anyone who wanted to. I also wore whatever clothes were trendy at the time, and if knowing all the words to the top 40 pop songs meant I was popular, then I spent hours memorizing lyric sheets that I
still remember to this day. I went through every phase to fit in with different crowds, from wearing flannel and bandanas with Metallica T-Shirts, to black eyeliner, Doc Martens boots, and a leather collar. Later in life, to fit in with whatever was perceived as "successful," I set out to make a lot of money, and got a job that I absolutely hated, and I know I'm not the only one.
I wonder if we try to "find ourselves" through the years, or if we actually already know who we are, but the world tells us to "fit in," so we basically audition for different roles until we nail one that gets us a standing ovation, and that's the role we commit to playing. I don't know. I just kept moving to a new city every five years and reinvented myself like a comedian trying out new material on different audiences to see what works.
After a few years, I went back to the drawing board to get in touch with the real me, who was there all along, but uncomfortable showing his face to the real world. When I reconnected with an old girlfriend recently, she was so happy to see that I had spread my wings since then, because she said she always visualized me as a bird in a cage that needed to fly, but spent life behind bars. "It's wonderful to see you so free," she said.
And that's why on the cover of my memoir is a little figure with huge wings, liberated from the past, from convention, affiliation, or association. I'm just me. And what does that mean? It means I'm not normal. And since lying is normal, pretending is normal, deceiving, saving face, avoiding confrontation, and playing life's game by somebody else's rules, are all seen as normal, I don't WANT to be normal. It's no surprise many of us spend huge chunks of our lives thinking there is
something wrong with us. The pressure to being someone we are not can build until we either have a breakdown or breakthrough. One usually leads to the other. What does it even mean to "act our age," for example? And why do we need to define ourselves by a political party, religion, personality type, or race? I refuse to play along. I am a lot of things, and not one of them defines me. You are also many things.
Some of those things are only roles you've learned to play over the years, but aren't who you truly are, and some are authentically you, whether you ever let anyone else see. If it's normal to pretend to be anything than the many things you are, let's not be normal. Let's refuse to conform to standards, or better yet, let's make nonconformity the new normal. The dictionary can change their definition; they've done it before.
What a beautiful, colorful, and accepting world it would be, solving the problem of so many people, young and old, thinking there is something wrong with them simply because they don't comply with the rules of a game they don't even want to play. No more shame, no more embarrassment. It's not too late for any of us to break free from the cages we're in, whether someone
else put us there, or if we went into the cage voluntarily. Turn around and introduce the real you to the world around you, maybe even to yourself for the first time. If someone has a problem with the real you, it's their problem to solve, not yours. Why are we afraid to disturb the status quo? We normalize 80-hour work weeks when we not only agree to work them, but brag about it. We normalize gossip, hostility, hatred, and violence, but that just means we can normalize kindness, too.
My life was completely changed by a coffee mug I once saw with a saying on it that read: Success means being happy. It blew my mind. In all the years I've heard about success, it always involved a lot of money, education, a big house, fancy car, family, kids, but nobody ever mentioned happiness. Don't get me wrong, you can be happy with those things, but you can also be miserable with them and happy without. I am happy, which means I'm successful.
Maybe not according to the general society's definition of success, but definitely according to me and at least one old coffee mug. The important thing is to be authentic. Don't be normal by trading-in your authenticity for approval. Be you. The world will adjust. Timber Hawkeye is the bestselling author of Faithfully Religionless and Buddhist Boot Camp.
For additional information, please visit BuddhistBootCamp.com, where you can order autographed books to support the Prison Library Project, watch Timber's inspiring TED Talk, and join our monthly mailing list. We hope you have enjoyed this episode and invite you to subscribe for more thought-provoking discussions. Thank you for being a Soldier of Peace in the Army of Love. 🙏