Better

"Let us be about setting high standards for life, love, creativity, and wisdom. If our expectations in these areas are low, we are not likely to experience wellness. Setting high standards makes every day and every decade worth looking forward to." Greg Anderson

Something is different. Everything is different. In an instant, my life, and my understanding of it changed. Have you ever met a person that radically changed your perception of what was possible? Everything is brighter, more hopeful, and greater now. The bar has been raised for the better. I am without words to describe this feeling. Wow, just wow. There is something special to be said about the people who enter or pass through our lives who expand the realm of possibilities, hell, somethings they show us a whole other world of opportunity we never knew existed. We are woefully limited by the scope of what we know to be possible. Much like self-fulfilling prophecies where our predicted behavior determines our actions, and ergo completes that cycle of an expected outcome, it can difficult to think beyond the possible. 

Many a times, we reach the edge of our understanding and feel restricted, or afraid to push past it. But what if there is more? What if we are right on the cusp of discovering a new reality, at least to us? What if greatness lies just ahead? We can never know if we never muster up the courage, or receive the empowerment/guidance of others. We have to be brave, even if only for a few minutes. We have to do the things that scare us. We have to examine past what we think is possible because that is where innovation, change, and oftentimes what we seek reside. All it takes is a moment or two of courage, fearfulness (you read that), and vulnerability, so we can move forward into the new worlds, and worldviews.

Better is out there in every way. Ways you don’t understand yet. Ways you don’t yet know are possible. Ways that you don’t think you deserve. You do. It’s never foolish to hope for better. We all deserve better. Better belongs to us. Better is possible. Better is hopeful. We have to stop being permissive of people and situations that do not meet our bare minimum requirements. Let me write it again, we need to seriously reevaluate why we are willing to accept mediocrity when it doesn't even meet the essentials. Anyone who makes you feel like you're extra, asking for too much, or being melodramatic in asking for what deserve is someone to be wary of. Bare minimum is the lowest you can go while still maintaining some essence of a standard. Much like job interviews - disqualify, disregard, and disconnect from those who do not meet those requirements. We don't get to complain when we have the power to permit or disallow people in our lives, and we grant them permission, even though they cannot even honor our most basic of tenets. That behavior is worth interrogating. Why are we so reluctant to hold people accountable for their impact, for not reciprocating, for not putting much of any effort in to us? Why do we give people free passes to run amuck in our lives when in any other context would not settle for their mediocrity? How are surprised when people who people can't meet a prerequisite fail at the course we let them skip to? Until we decide we deserve & believe better, we will continue to accept less than better.

Comparison is the thief of joy, but it is also a crucial part of our learning processes. It's in comparing things, people, experiences, etc. that we begin to learn about ourselves, our patterns of thought/behavior, and our perspectives. Sometimes, most of the time, it takes experiencing something or someone better to help us recognize how others have been. Sometimes we have to see that people could have done/been better, or yet still, that they couldn't have. People have their limits, and while they may reach theirs, and not be enough, just know that it does not mean have to reevaluate what we want, and need - it just means that person cannot be it. Sometimes it's knowing that better is out there that recalibrates us to want to continue searching, striving, and and yearning for it. Nobody compares, when you finally look back. You realize how low you went, how much you settled for, and how you cheapened your sense of self-worth. How can anything or anyone be this good? It's outside of our vantage point until someone points us in a different direction or expands it. There is so much more to see and to been. There is more beyond our reality. Just the prospect of that matters. More shines light when we think only darkness can prevail. More leaves space for edits to be made in the margins. More means that there is a chance for better, and that chance is worth taking. 

Our standards are not meant to be immovable, but they are also not meant to be indistinct. We have to spend time creating our standards for how we operate, how we'll allow others to be with us, and what we need. When we know who we are, what we're carrying with us, and what makes us invaluable, nothing, and no one can convince us otherwise. We cannot be lead astray, made to settle, or lulled in to submission in accepting less than what we're due, when we know we deserve better. Self-awareness, self-assurance, and self-value can only be cultivated by us; and when we do the necessary self-work to build ourselves up on an unshakable foundation predicated on knowing thine self, we are indestructible. Now that we know what's possible, that people who fulfill our needs exists, and that we are worthy, worthwhile, and worth it - we are equipped to ignore any, and all offers, inquiries, and attempts that don't even meet basic needs. We know better, so we do better. X

Rationalizing Better Questions:
Who am I?
Why am I who I am?
What makes me special?
How am I like, and unlike others?
What do I value, and why?
What are my deal-breakers, and non-negotiables - where did I learn them from?
What is my worth, and where do I derive it from?
What does enough look and feel like for me?
What is better, and what is beyond my boundaries for myself?