This is taken from the current book I am reading by Paulo Coelho : The Winner Stands Alone. I was in the train, on my way to work when I read this two pages of list on what being normal means. A successful rich man asked his bodyguard, and when his bodyguard couldn't give him any satisfying answers, he took out a folded paper that he brings everywhere to :
" What does being normal mean ? "
" I always have this with me and I add to it all the time ".
- Anything that makes us forget who we are and what we want; that way we can work in order to produce, reproduce, and earn money.
- Setting out rules for waging war (the Geneva Convention).
- Spending years studying at university only to find out at the end of it all that you're unemployable.
- Working from 9 till 5 every day at something that gives you no pleasure just so that, after thirty years, you can retire.
- Retiring and discovering that you no longer have enough energy to enjoy life and dying a few years out of sheer boredom.
- Using Botox.
- Believing that power is much more important than money and that money is much more important than happiness.
- Making fun of anyone who seeks happiness rather than money and accusing them of "lacking ambition."
- Comparing objects like cars, houses, clothes, and defining life according to those comparisons, instead of trying to discover the real reason for being alive.
- Never talking to strangers. Saying nasty things about the neighbors.
