I am the Norm. You’re Not.

For this you should be grateful.

I plan to outlive everybody who watched Cheers in the 1980s, only because I want to be able to walk into a room without every witty soul present calling out, “Hey, Norm!” as if I’ve never heard it before. If I had a nickel for every time that’s happened, I’d own a Pacific island.

Like most given names, there’s an origin story, and “Norm” has its own. Norman comes directly from the French “Normand” (as my grandfather mostly spelled it), which in turn came directly from the Norse invaders of Normandy late in the first millennium AD. The Normans were the “men of the North”, as simple as that.

I was named Norman after my grandfather, Normand, but interestingly enough, most Normans of my generation are Jewish. Norman, along with Harvey, Lawrence, and Irving was one of the “cool” names for Jewish boys in the late 40s and early 50s. The misunderstanding has served me well in my professional career.

But I digress. The important point is that you are not the norm. Far from it, regardless of your given name.

The truth is that you are unique amongst the eight billion humans who inhabit this planet. There are probably hundreds of millions of your height, but of those, only tens of millions who are also of your weight, and just millions who share your height, weight, and hair colour. And most of those are of the opposite sex.

Of the remaining few million who might seem like you, some are more musical than you while others are less musical, ditto with public speaking, or numbers, or mixing drinks, or catching fish. After you wave aside all those who are different than you in some form or other, there are precious few left who remotely seem much like you. And if we got the five or six of you in a room, it wouldn’t take long to discern that, in fact, you’re all different from each other.

One of the most important things in life is to accept the fact that there is nobody quite like you anywhere else on the planet. You have a unique set of attributes that sets you apart.

But here’s the thing that’s more stunning: amongst your eight billion co-inhabitants of the planet, there are some who really need the Giftings you possess. And beyond those few, there are hundreds who need something very close to the Giftings you have, and thousands who need something of the same genre, and tens of thousands who will generally benefit in some way from what you have to offer.

It’s just numbers, of course, but it remains undeniable that you are special, and there are individuals out there who need exactly, or nearly, the Giftinst you possess. It may be showing a solution to an intractable math problem, of it may be coming alongside a neighbor collapsing under a weight of grief. No matter, you have what they need.

How can you not say you’re not needed?

So, what are you waiting for?