What Are You Letting Become Normal?

I was in a car accident that totaled my wife’s Kia Soul. Top it off… the accident happened on her birthday.

For over a year, I let something become normal that shouldn’t have been.

The accident had damaged the passenger’s side headlamp assembly and broken the turn signal. No big deal. There’s plenty of other ways to signal, right?

Headlamp of a car

Photo by Alex Gomon

There are… Yet I chose to continue to turn on the right turn blinker. Every time I would do this, a distinct sound would begin.

A rapid tick, tick, tick.

You know the sound if you’ve had a broken or burnt out turn signal. It’s the rapid ticking that alerts you to an issue with your turn signal.

I decided it wasn’t a big deal and let it go until recently. I decided enough was enough. It was time to replace the Kia Soul headlamp assembly and fix the thing.

After watching a few YouTube videos on the repair, I felt confident I could do the repair. Within 20 minutes, I had removed the old headlamp assembly, installed the new headlamp assembly, and had everything working again.

However… something didn’t feel right. Whenever I put my turn signal on, I don’t hear the rapid tick, tick, tick. There is now a gentle, slow tick, tick, tick.

It doesn’t sound right. It’s bothered me. And it’s my fault.

I let something that shouldn’t be normal to become normal.

What Are You Letting Become Normal?

My situation is something we all allow into our lives. We know there’s something wrong but it’s small. The issue isn’t big enough to fix or make right.

We live with the issue for days, months, maybe even years. All the while, we begin to think of the issue as normal.

Big problem:

The issue isn’t normal. It is abnormal.

Just because something has become so routine, regular, or normal, doesn’t mean there isn’t an issue. We’ve just allowed ourselves to ignore it.

Begin searching your life for the things you’ve let become normal that shouldn’t be. I’m sure you’ll find a whole host of them. I know I do when I look.

Your normalized issues may be:

  • Ignoring the difficult discussion with your spouse
  • Not confronting your team member who doesn’t get his work done
  • Choosing to look the other way on your daughter’s bad grades
  • Forgetting to show up to meetings

What we don’t deal with can become normal. We have to be better leaders, better spouses, better parents than this.

Instead of pushing issues under the rug, begin to confront the issues you’ve neglected.

The sooner you deal with the issues you’ve neglected, the sooner they can be dealt with. The sooner you can return to true normal.

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