Has it ever happened to you that a song pops into your head and you get caught up in a loop, repeating one or two lines again and again, either in your head or out loud?

That happens to me a lot. For example, with a song by Orla Garland that I discovered within the Heartstoppersoundtrack; I love it! The title is Why am I like this?, which is exactly the line that´s repeated nonstop during the chorus 🙂

Have you ever asked yourself that question? I get the impression that many of us do, and unfortunately, quite often in a negative way, as in: "What´s wrong with me? Why am I so weird? Why can´t I be more normal?"

Ahh, that´s the trap, believing there´s such a thing as "being normal".

We are the way we are, and there are as many ways of being in this world as inhabitants there are here on Earth. When we take this into account, the question becomes much more interesting: "Why am I like this? What makes me be exactly the way I am?"

And the reason why it´s so interesting is because nobody knows for sure. If we asked an anthropologist, a neuroscientist, a priest and an astrologer about the reasons behind a certain specific behaviour, I´m sure they would give us completely different answers, each of them based on their own experience and knowledge. Who would be right? We don´t know. Perhaps each of them would be able to see different pieces of this huge jigsaw puzzle of our personality.

We´ve already talked in this blog about how our brain loves simplifying, as it makes life easier while saving a lot of energy. One of the ways in which it simplifies is looking for a single explanation for each thing, as if everything in life followed a simple law of cause and effect. But deep down we know it´s not like that: at any given moment, there are multiple causes and effects influencing each other; that´s what makes life so complex, so diverse, and most of all, so unpredictable.

But then, how can we answer the damn question?

• First of all, acknowledging that our personality is very complex, and that it´s influenced by many different factors (Alberto, my enneagram teacher, uses the analogy of us being an alloy of several metals, each of us with a unique combination).
• From that starting point, we can observe, investigate, look out for patterns... Curiosity (without judgement) is what´s going to help us most in this task of getting to know ourselves, and others, better. We're going to start realizing things.
• From there, theories and explanations of why we are the way we are will start emerging, and given that we´re not going to be able to know whether they´re true or not, the best thing we can do is choose the ones that help us the most, and then progressively verify and expand them as we find out more.

What do you think of this approach? I admit I've asked myself this question, "why am I like this?" many many times, as I've always felt a bit (or a lot) like an oddball. Maybe that's why I like the song that much.

And regarding being or not being normal, let me share two quotes with you. The first one encourages us to set aside our prejudices and generalizations, and to get closer to the other person so that we can get to really know them:

Viewed up close, nobody is normal.

Caetano Veloso

And the second one I find very funny, it's on one of my fridge magnets and it reminds me that on this topic we're all more or less on the same boat:

Remember: as far as anyone knows, we're a nice normal family.

Homer Simpson

In summary: deep down we are all oddballs, in our own unique way 🙂