Given the state of world affairs, the typical greeting, "I hope you are well," should be replaced with something like, "I hope you are managing the trauma of the human experience."

Many of us have grown up in a world where we are told one thing about the experience we're supposed to have in the world while observing another, often the opposite. From unrealized promises of our basic safety and security to financial opportunity and success to diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work and places we want to call home, something isn't right.

Even worse, we are often expected to accept the dissonance we experience, that it'll all work out eventually, and that the problem is in us, wanting too much too quickly. This is hypernormalization.

As a result, we find ourselves suppressing our self-expression, masking ourselves to fit in, and isolating ourselves in an attempt to become self-sufficient instead of engaging others. Key elements that form our identity, such as race, sexuality, gender, and neurodiversity, are ignored or denied their right to exist. We experience sustained trauma and have a hard time finding rest as we try to outrun the people who cling to what is supposed to be "normal." 

Actualization, individually and collectively, is the key to overcoming hypernormalization.

Actualization is experiencing joy in being our authentic selves. Actualization is fulfilling and expanding the potential we have within us. 

Actualization starts with healing. But healing is not about getting "back to normal." That normal never existed; it's just perpetuated by those in power as a way to pathologize anything that isn't what perpetuates dominance. Healing is about unlearning how we block out and ignore the signals of our suffering and accept our suffering in an attempt to be "normal." 

As we heal, we need to figure out what to do with our healed selves. We spend so much time in our lives healing that we often don't know what to do with ourselves once we are healed. So thriving is about finding and pursuing the purpose connected with our potential. Even better, thriving is when we look beyond ourselves to help others and help build the personal and civilizational resilience to persist through accelerating change.

In a world of hyper-normalization, learning to actualize is a form of resistance. And in resistance, we find joy.

Most people never learned what actualization is, so in a hyper-normalized world, we're left to our imaginations.

As a result, many people see actualization as an epiphany or freedom they'll be granted once they possess the right things or have the right experiences. Others discount it to seeing actualization as a process of fulfilling their more basic or psychological needs, what we call the Actualization Escalator.

If we are to start experiencing joy in being our authentic selves and fulfilling our potential today, we need to learn how to bring meaning into every moment. We need to stop assimilating to the hyper-normalized world and start paying attention to the signals of what we need to have a role in changing. 

Actualization is complex, and it can quickly become messy and chaotic if we treat it as an excuse to be totally self-centered.

We need to agree on some conventions for engaging ourselves and each other in our actualization work. In complex problems, strict rules are brittle and easily broken, but guiding principles are more easily applied. 

That's why we created the Actualization Code, a set of tenets to guide people, organizations, and communities to foster a culture that supports everyone through their actualization experience.