Normal

What's normal to you? It's probably not as normal as you think.

What you consider to be normal is the strongest mental force in the human experience.

I was 16 when I started lifting weights. I was a chunky kid. I googled how many calories were in a pound of fat (3500) and estimated how many pounds of fat I wanted to lose (20) and how long I wanted it to take (6 weeks).

I figured I would eat 1200 calories a day and burn 1000 on the treadmill/elliptical every single day. Every single day I worked out with super high intensity for 2.5-3 full hours. 1 full hour to burn 1000 on the treadmill/elliptical, then 1.5 hours of weightlifting.

This didn't feel that crazy to me. I had never worked out with any friends before and didn't know that it wasn't "normal". I figured if it was easy everyone would do it, and many people were fat so sure, it would take some effort.

I'd go home from school, half-ass some homework, work on my DIY electric skateboard, and then go to the gym. I lost 20 pounds in 6 weeks and put on some decent muscle. (This is probably not healthy)

Now, years later, people are surprised when I mention working out for an hour a day, six days a week. My "normal" has shifted dramatically. The old routine seems insane to me now.

There are many dimensions upon which we have a "perceived normal". Mental exertion, sexual tendencies, physical exertion, diet, almost every part of human nature is shaped by what we consider to be normal. There are people who come home from a 9-5 and say they are exhausted, and there are people who come home from a 7am-9pm and and excited to keep working

There really is nothing normal. Even your normal comfort foods are a cacophony of bundled high complexity ingredients - alien to most people who've ever lived.

This is why so many smart people stress the importance of surrounding yourself with smart, ambitious people. It's also what I think made YC so successful.

Sure there are outlier high-agency people who can overcome this. There's probably a strain of autism that makes you immune to this effect. I would guess the lower agency you are the more it matters to surround yourself with smart, ambitious people - though ironically these are the people least likely to make a conscious choice to do so. Perhaps thats a good thing. This would dilute the "normal" of smart ambitioous people by effect

This is how trends become "things." It's a powerful force. Ideas that seem outlandish to us now—like certain political movements or social norms from the past—didn't feel extreme to the people living through them. They were just "the way things are."

This adaptability is both our superpower and our curse. A child can grow up in almost any environment and find it normal. Extreme poverty or extravagant wealth, strict discipline or total freedom—given enough time, it all becomes background noise. This is what makes humans so resilient, but it's also what can trap us in harmful patterns without us even realizing it.

Consider how "normal" varies across cultures: In some countries, it's normal to work 60-hour weeks, while in others, a 35-hour workweek is standard. In Silicon Valley, it might be normal to talk about starting a company, while in other places, entrepreneurship is seen as risky and unusual.

Consider these subtle social situations that shape your "normal":

• Implied beliefs: A friend exclaims, "I worked so late today!" Do they mean 6 PM or 1 AM? The difference reveals volumes about what each of you considers a "long day."
• Reaction expectations: You need to cancel plans last-minute for work. Are your friends irritated or understanding? Their response signals whether prioritizing work is "normal" in your circle.
• Unspoken definitions: "Let's go work at Starbucks" could mean intense focus or casual socializing with laptops open. The gulf between these interpretations exposes divergent norms.
• Success metrics: When someone wants to celebrate a "big win," do they mean selling their couch or closing a $10K deal? These casual references calibrate your sense of scale and ambition.
• Perception of Risk: Your friend group expresses shock when you mention quitting your job. Are they seeing genuine danger or just unfamiliarity?

Most people float through life unaware of how these micro-interactions are programming their expectations. Ask yourself: are the "normals" you're absorbing aligned with where you want to go? If not, it's time to refactor your environment.

This realization is both liberating and terrifying. On one hand, it means we have the power to shape our "normal" by carefully curating our environment. On the other hand, it means we might be limiting ourselves without even realizing it.

It's nice that we control this to a large extent. Not in the sense we can control what we internalize as normal, but in the sense we can control our environment to shape our personality as we see fit. Unfortunately most people are not intentional about this. Once you have a normal it's extremely hard to change it.

My suggestion to smart high agency people reading this is to consider what normals your current environment provides you. Is it normal to you to play video games or watch TV in your free time? How and where did this come from? Are you willing to accept the consequences of this normal? The key is to be intentional about it. Most people passively absorb their sense of normal from their surroundings. But if you're reading this, you're probably not most people. You have the agency to shape your environment and, by extension, your sense of what's possible.

I imagine most people consider what they feel is normal is normal to everyone. Almost no one realizes that normal is a completely abstract concept completely relative to an individual's exposure.

A valid criticism of this is that it's sociopathic to try to control your environment to shape your personality. Perhaps it is.

What does it mean to be human? To maximally leverage conciousness to shape your reality? To be the architect of your own experience? Or is it to be able to adapt to any environment?

I think most people want to be the architect of their own experience. I also think most people let their environment shape them

A plan:

1. Set your highest level goals- what do you want?
2. Then - what personality traits does someone who achieves those goals exhibit?
3. Finally - what do you need to do to be in a place where those traits are normal?

This doesn't necessarily mean moving to a new city (though it might). It could mean leaving/joining different online communities, changing your media diet, or cutting out certain people from your life.

In a world where "normal" is relative, why not make extraordinary your new normal?