As a kid, I used to have asthma. I haven’t had a full-blown attack since I was 7. But for as long as I can remember, if I exerted myself too much (workouts, playing soccer, etc), my chest would start getting slightly tighter. I only found out about a couple of months ago that this wasn’t a universal thing. That to most of the world, that wasn’t normal.

But for me, it was. I grew up with it. I always thought that it was just a normal reaction to exercise – part of breathlessness and tiredness.

It made me realize just how much of our experience in the world is coloured by our own past and history. Other people, with other experiences and histories, see and experience the world in completely different ways

There really isn’t any “normal”. There’s normal for us – based on what we’re used to seeing in the world. What we can do is recognize that, embrace it – and try to see what other people see, in order to understand how they experience the world.