Often, things that are extraordinary become normal. Repetition numbs our awareness of the abnormal, the uniqueness that can find its way into our lives.
It’s like the waitress at the world’s finest restaurant that won’t eat the food that people flock to experience from around the world. The extraordinary becomes normal. The extraordinary becomes ordinary.
The result can be tragic if you are a spouse, a parent, a leader, an entrepreneur, a pastor, or anything else! Parents miss entire relationships with their kids over this. Leaders miss opportunities. We all miss the opportunity to live in awe of what we’ve so graciously been given. We all forget to celebrate wins and embrace the good!
To overcome this reality, to keep the extraordinary from becoming ordinary, we MUST stop and reflect on what is around us. We must take notice of our surroundings and circumstances and ask the questions,
“What is amazing around me?”
“What may I be missing out on here?” and,
“What is so unexplainable in my life that it simply cannot come from human origin?”
It is an improper attitude that causes the extraordinary to become ordinary.
It is a limited perspective that turns the amazing into the mundane.
It is even the simple reality of repetition that can turn our red, beating hearts into gray, motionless stone.
Here is another way to look at the issue.
Extraordinary thing x frequency = perceived ordinary thing
We have to jumble up the equation if we want to keep the extraordinary from becoming old and rusty like a forgotten antique toy in the attic.
It could look something like:
Extraordinary thing x frequency x REFLECT = Extraordinary thing
or
Extraordinary thing x frequency x PERSPECTIVE = Extraordinary thing
I’m afraid if we don’t learn to embrace the extraordinary of today, there will be no extraordinary in our lives tomorrow.
Either it will be there and we’ll miss it, or it won’t be there because we never learned to embrace it the first time.
Keep the extraordinary.
Embrace it.
Ask for more of it.
Whatever you do.
Don’t miss it.
Why is it so easy for the extraordinary to become ordinary? Why is it so difficult to keep what is precious from losing its luster? I’d love to hear your thoughts!!
