🌮THERE IS NO NORMAL! A quick story about taco shells...
My teenage daughter likes hard shell tacos.
Being a teenager, she makes requests based on her instincts in the moment. Sometimes the taco shells I buy from the store aren't the name brand or the specific kind she likes or is used to. On the rare occasion this happens, she invariably asks the same question with typical teenage disgust...
"Dad, can you get the 'normal' shells next time!?"
To which I patiently respond that 'there are no 'normal' taco shells. There are just taco shells'.
This philosophy also applies to people and their brains.
• I've never liked the word 'normal'.
• I didn't like it when I taught autistic kids; before I knew I was autistic.
• I didn't like it after my diagnosis.
• I certainly don't like it now.
The problem with 'normal' is that it's subjectively based on a person's or a group of people's ideas, beliefs, experiences, and comfort. Anything left or right of this is deemed odd, weird, unorthodox, or divergent. This is usually based on individualistic fear, lack of knowledge, or inexperience versus a collective conversation and a desire to connect with the other person or group of people. This leads to an us vs. them, black vs. white, right vs. wrong lifestyle and mindset. In other words, 'Compliance vs. Community'.
This is why, as a society, we have to move "From Compliance to Community"™. Move from patterns of fixed thoughts and beliefs to a series of incremental changes in behavior.
THERE IS NO NORMAL! There just 'is'.
#Neurodiversity #Autism #DEI #DEIA #DiversityAndInclusion #Diversity #Equality #Equity
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I am a DEIA consultant, speaker, and author. I help institutions achieve organizational excellence by navigating neurodiversity from the boardroom to the mailroom.
Book my Time: https://bly.to/RFTMttl
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Grant Harris, MBA, CDE® | https://lnkd.in/eMkCVKqF
'From Compliance to Community'™
Advisor International Expansion & Commercial Strategy
3w🧡Care about the community 🙌. Well done Popeyes Louisiana Chicken UK