When Confused–Just Say It’s 2023!
As the years go by, I become more confused, but I’ve come to the conclusion it’s not because of me, but because of everything else around me. “Back in the day”, I was seldom confused as everything was “normal”. Today, and especially since what occurred in 2020, the term “new normal” has reappeared replacing the term “normal” which to me is completely “abnormal”. Does this make sense or are you now as confused as I am?
By definition, “new normal” means, since 2020, how what happened then completely transformed human life, including professional identity, economic subsistence, work and family organization, and education, demanding a radical revision of the traditional ways and skills to manage them. So, what was a previously unfamiliar or atypical situation has now become standard, usual, or expected.
This state of personal confusion recently “came to a head” when I was recently filling out some paperwork prior to a medical appointment. The question before me was simply what gender was I? Expecting to see the choice merely between male and female, I became utterly confused and, quite frankly, a vehement rage came over me when the choices, other than male and female, included transgender, genderqueer, agender, genderless, non-binary, cis man, cis woman, trans man, trans woman, two-spirit, bigender, or genderfluid. Of course, to top this off, you had the final choice of not answering at all. Please tell me I was in a deep sleep and having a terrible nightmare!
Once I cooled off and came to my senses, realizing this wasn’t a terrible nightmare, the surreal reality which came over me was unrealistic. First off, I didn’t know the meaning of the additional choices offered to me; second, this didn’t come close to being what I considered to be “normal”; and finally, if this is what is called “new normal”, I was certain it had to be “abnormal”.
To be blunt, if you’re born with male genitalia then you’re a male and if you’re born with female genitalia then you’re a female. Those are truly your only choices–case closed!
Stand Up and Do the Right Thing
This is just one of many examples of how our American society has succumbed to the challenges of what were our core principles. As I’ve previously stated, I’m proud to be an American, but not so very proud of America today. Rather than stand up and do what we need to do to protect what is “normal”, we have adopted this “new normal”. Our younger generations seemingly can’t find themselves and by being so-called “politically correct” and allowing special interest groups to prevail and exercise their will, we have all but eliminated our cultural structure, standards, and expectations. It’s time to put to the side our self-centered, greedy, and selfish ways and do the right thing by bringing back what I term “normal” to our society.
The Four Stages of Accepting Something Unacceptable
As human beings, being human, we suffer human frailties. Thus, the four stages of accepting something unacceptable are:
- Abhor
- Tolerate
- Accept
- Embrace
Stage One, “abhor”, is to believe something is so disgusting that there’s no way you’d ever accept such an unacceptable act or behavior. But in order to “nip this in the bud” one must act quickly, not “sweeping it under the rug”, and meeting any potential confrontation head on.
Stage Two, “tolerate”, takes over when you fail to quickly react to the unacceptable situation, for some reason, you’re unable to come to terms with the immediate challenge at hand. Instead of abhorring the unacceptable situation, because you’ve failed to react to it in a timely manner, you begin allowing it to exist.
Stage Three, “accept”, is when you continue to allow the unacceptable situation to linger. You, being human, are now beginning to believe or recognize that what was so unacceptable is appearing to perhaps being valid or even correct. Now, the sense of urgency to address this has diminished significantly.
Stage Four, “embrace”, occurs when you’re convinced what you thought was inconceivable to accept, is not only acceptable, but you support it willingly and enthusiastically. It’s now just the way it is and you justify it as a “way of life”.
Conclusion
So, by allowing what we’ve allowed to become the “new normal” which is, of course, isn’t “normal”, at least, by my definition, the fact is it’s “abnormal”. Not meeting these challenges head on, avoiding confrontation, and accepting unacceptable situations to stay “politically correct” so as not to interfere with the agenda of special interest groups, we’ve failed to stand up and do the right thing while we’re “spinning our wheels” in attempt to find ourselves having lost all structure, standards, and expectations.
Now you might understand why our family escaped and established “The Compound” in 2021. La Bear, being extremely objective, merely states the current year when we see how the actions of others continues to erode our American society in such a negative way. In other words, when confused–just say it’s 2023!