Beware Of “Normal” Things

Do you want to be happy? If yes, beware of “normal” things. Yes, you read me well; beware of those things expected of everyone; things that are “normal”, in vogue and cherished. Most times, these are chains with which society binds us, such that pursuit of happiness ceases to be a search for personal satisfaction and rather becomes a strenuous struggle to appease the bullish crowd.

Looking round my university in this past one week or so, I see students taking their final degree exams celebrate this milestone by dressing in different ways depending on the theme they have chosen for the day – Vintage Day, Costume Day, Jersey Day, Ankara Day, Sign Out Day etc. The whole affair is elegantly colourful, keeping no one in doubt as to the fact that the students must have spent some fortune to participate in the funfair.

Every season of second semester exams that I witness this, I feel amused by how times, trends, and “normal” things define our happiness for us. During my own time, it was not “normal” for students to don special attires (including uniforms) on each day of their degree examination. It was not in vogue, it was not fashionable. In fact, if anyone had dared then to do any of such, the person would surely have been accused of overdoing; they would be derided for unnecessary dramatisation and show-off. What was “normal” then was simply to frolic with your mates, take a few photos with analogue cameras, and perhaps visit a bar or eatery to give yourself a treat. That was what I experienced on that memorable Friday, August 26, 2005, when, after our documentary film exam (MAC 482), I retired to an eatery with my friends for some meals and cold bottles of beer.

But a graduating student of today would find this approach too quiet and insipid, if not an anti-climax, after years of intense drudgery of schoolwork. But we did not see it that way, it was for us the best we could do, and we thoroughly enjoyed it – all because our society of then considered it the “normal” way to celebrate one’s graduation.

The lesson in all this is that we as individuals can indeed be happy without necessarily relying on what society approves as happiness. Society’s standards are so unstable that what is normal today becomes abnormal tomorrow, and what’s cherished today becomes derided tomorrow. Therefore, think before you jump on the bandwagon.

Now imagine this; the same celebration we happily had when we dropped our degree exam pen years ago has become more expensive to come by for today’s undergraduates who now have to spend on all sorts of costumes and perhaps other items which have all become a “normal” component of end-of-school celebration. Think of how much pains
endured by some other persons – parents, older siblings, boyfriends and sugar daddy’s – just to help some of the undergraduates to acquire their expensive “happiness”.

Our happiness is so crucial to our being that we must make it a subject of regular inquiry and contemplation in order to sieve out the chaff from the wheat. For instance, personally, at times I make conscious effort to interrogate my cravings. I ask questions like “what do I need a car for? Is it for mobility or as a status symbol?” Answers to these questions will help me decide whether to go for a durable and economically convenient car or for an exotic luxury car with a high price tag? Going for the latter would of course amount to surrendering my power to create my happiness to the crowd whose cheers I expect. This is nothing but going for the “normal”.

While our happiness cannot be totally separated from what society offers, we still retain the power to somehow depend less on others to be happy. Contrary to what society purports when it presents us the “normal”, there’s no one way of being happy; happiness can be profoundly personal. When you don’t have the resources to jump on the bandwagon, direct your mind to other paths that lead to happiness. An undergraduate who cannot muster the money to spend on costumes for celebrating his graduation should use the little he has to treat himself to good meals, drinks and perhaps a movie time at the cinema. Life offers many paths to happiness but many a time our society, through its prescription of the “normal”, blurs this fact.

This is my meditation this midweek.

Henry Chigozie Duru, PhD, teaches journalism and mass communication at Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Nigeria.