Member-only story
There’s No Such Thing as Normal
It’s all just what you’re used to.
Have you ever lost power before and you keep flipping the light switches anyway?
It’s a learned behavior, one we’ve picked up from thousands of successful experiences with turning lights on and off. We didn’t evolve to hit light switches, it’s just a habit we’ve developed through a lifetime of indoor living.
In 2009, there was an epic ice storm in New England that resulted in lengthy power outages. I was living in a rural New Hampshire town where we went 12 days with no electricity. Guess what? Within a few days, I stopped reaching for the light switches.
In fact, I got so used to lighting lanterns and using flashlights that when the power came back on, it took a little while for me to adjust to using electric lights again. The bright, electric bulbs seemed so harsh that I continued to cook and read by lanterns for several more days.
Life is always changing. There isn’t a ‘normal’ version of life that we can always count on returning to. It’s just that we get so used to things being a certain way that it feels like we won’t be whole until those conditions exist again.
When I was in preschool, I used to call my best friend on a rotary phone with a long spiral cord that hung on the wall in my dad’s office. By high school, I dialed…
