I'm going to venture away from the dictionary definitions of the two terms, "ordinary" and "normal" and I'm going to use the terms as they might be used on "the street" - so to speak. Or rather, I'll use them in the context that I am most used to using. I want to make a distinction between what people would deem "normal" and what is agreeably ordinary. Normal and ordinary are not necessarily the same thing. In fact, most of the time, they are almost opposite.

In a social context, when a person is called "weird" and it is meant as a negative label, the implication is that the person is not normal. Normal, in this instance, is the label given to behaviors that are ordinary and commonly approved of.

In my childhood, I was often called weird because I did not behave in an ordinary way. I wasn't extremely different from everyone else, but I just had a different way about myself, and many of my peers treated me as though there was something wrong with me. So I developed this concept in my mind at a young age, that being normal - to me - did not mean being like other people. What normal meant to me - what it still means to me - is being like myself.

And being like one's self, in this day and age, is definitely not ordinary. I would go as far as to say that at any given time in world history, being normal (in my definition) has always been a rarity. People who truly follow their heart at absolutely all costs are very much unordinary. But I say that those are the only normal people in the world!

What I mean is, most people diminish their uniqueness to some degree or another so as to conform with the rest of whatever society they are a part of. I believe it is such a powerful tendancy to mimic others that it is virtually irresistable. We are born into a world of other people who all mimic each other - why should we start out going agaisnt the grain? Well, I think being normal is a special ability that a person is born with. It's a rare strength. It's these kinds of people who are born leaders. Look at any world changing leader throughout history - men and women who single handedly altered the world significantly. All of them had something new to bring to the table. They all had something that was all them - something that came purely from their individual soul. Those who are born with the ability to tap into that uniqueness even in the face of rejection and disaproval, are the born leaders of the world.

Getting back to our comparison - normal vs. ordinary - I'll give an example. Lets go back to the 1950's when smoking tobacco was the ordinary thing to do. Everybody did it - men and women alike. No-smoking signs were unheard of. The president could be seen smoking cigarrettes and it made him look more sophisticated. I imagine that a grown man of the world who chose not to smoke because of the little known heath risks would be called "weird" by his peers; if not openly then just casually in their minds. But was this man weird (not normal) or was he just unordinary? Well, by my definition, he was the only normal one of them. I mean, who starts smoking just because they have a heart desire to breathe smoke into their lungs? A person who is thinking about an aspect of their health that everyone else is ignoring is a person who listens to their body and heart.

Take an entire third-world nation infected with the AIDS virus. All of them have it except one woman who has somehow managed to avoid it. Would the others call her weird as a negative label? Or is she the only normal one of them?

Being yourself 100% is extremely hard. But it is so rewarding because you'll never have a question about whether your behavior is normal or not. You'll know that it is, because you'll know yourself. The world needs more of those kinds of people.