“Did you choose to be a teenage hermit who can’t read?”

Are we limiting our true potential by seeking “normal”?

The question seems innocent enough.

I’m grabbing lunch with a group of friends when the conversation turns to our childhoods.

One grew up traveling the world with their ambassador father. Another spent most of her time in a London boarding school. Most attended various public and private schools across America.

Then I drop the bombshell: “I was homeschooled.”

Predictably, a well-meaning friend asks with an edge of compassionate concern, “Wow, was it your choice?”

What they’re really asking (but too polite to say out loud) is, “Wow, did you choose to be an anti-social, secluded child who never got to experience the boundless joy of attending school?”

Now I could explain that US schools provide terrible educations, mention the unsolved problem of bullying, or show how our schooling system particularly hurts the middle class.

I could explain how homeschooling let me develop strong social skills (and not just in my age group), how it gave me more time for extracurricular activities (that’s the proper school jargon for “doing interesting stuff”, right?), or how it helped me earn my bachelor’s degree by age 21.

But I don’t.

Instead, I just smile and say how much I learned and how grateful I am to my parents for the opportunity. And I quietly wonder how many of my friends will eventually homeschool their own kids.

But this isn’t really about homeschooling at all.

It’s about something much bigger.

We’re afraid to be different.

Even as we encourage each other to “think different” and “be yourself”, we’re terrified of actually being different.

When we rebel, we do it together. When we achieve, we do it in the the acceptable “normal” way.

And yet, being normal doesn’t lead to greatness.

When Galileo held to Copernicus’ heliocentric theory (that the earth rotates around the sun), the “normal” people of his time completely rejected him — yet history has proven him correct.

What if we were willing to be different — not for the sake of being different, but for the sake of learning?

What if we were willing to do the uncomfortable things?

Nate Desmond is a growth professional who spends his free time reading amazing books and training parkour. He writes frequently about growth marketing on his blog and lifestyle thoughts on Medium.