Standards and Potential

There is always a standard in everything that we take part in. When I’m cooking something, for example, I expect things to be pretty good; you know, not inedible, but not like Emeril style. In some things, however, I expect perfection from myself – which I admit is a lot of pressure. In other things, however, I just take anything I get – in other words, I don’t expect myself to do too well and accept failure. I’m sure each and every one of us has preconceived notions of how we should do given a certain situation.

Thus, it’s clear that in everything I do, I have this idealized version of myself that I try to live up to or beyond. However, I feel like this is almost a depressing exercise. A lot of times, my opinion of myself is better than I actually am. So I walk away from whatever the task may be tired and defeated. It’s tough being the Ben that lives in my head [you know, tight abs, man boobs, the works… Haha… not really]. Often, it’s rather damaging to myself when this does happen.

Lately, talking with some people has opened my eyes to this. By comparing myself to this general standard of people, I will have achieved nothing. I will probably just let myself down, and not allow myself to perform as well as I could. However, the key to this is to compare myself to my potential. This is something I hope to teach myself over the next few months. It’s not about what others can do, but rather about my personal ability to do this. Similarly, I shouldn’t measure the ability of people against this same standardized measure of ability; to do so would just lead to disappointment in both parties. Rather, I should try to measure the ability of people against their own potential and praise them for achieving it. I think by doing this, the people I work with and myself will be edified.

So some questions I’m going to ask myself are: What is my potential? Have I reached my potential? What’re the potentials of people around me? Is it reflected in the way I deal with them?

We’ll see how it goes…