I’m trying something different this week, so bear with me: it might be a little rough. My idea for Theme of the Week is to take a word or short phrase, put it under a microscope, and suck all the meaning out of it that I can. (If you’re thinking, hey that sounds suspiciously like Harry Potter and the Sacred Text… you’re not wrong. If you’re thinking I don’t remember that book! Do yourself a favor and check it out. If you’re thinking that in no way sounds like Harry Potter and the Sacred Text, you’re probably not wrong either.) So buckle up, put your thinking cap on, and join me in thinking about standards.
What are Standards?
Ok so I can already hear you saying Emory what on Earth are you asking? You know what standards are. This isn’t a mystery. You’ve got high standards, low standards, standards of excellence, standards of care, slipping standards, etc etc, whateverwhocares. Standards are what we use to judge the world around us.
So in a way you can think of standards as the lens you use to view the world. You walk into a new restaurant, you put on your restaurant standards glasses; you meet someone new, you put on your persons standards glasses; or you are looking for a new job, you put on your job standards glasses. We are constantly assessing and judging, and standards are the tipping point at which we approve or disapprove.
The question now is, how do we form standards? They seem to be a pretty integral part of our lives, but is it a conscious process or something that just happens? I think that, while that’s a little more science-y than I am qualified to answer, we can definitely pseudo-science our way towards some theories. Step one: let’s go digging into the backstory of standards. Part of assessing things is comparing them against previous experiences. In this way, we can form expectations for future experiences, which then pave the way for forming standards.
Vs. Expectations
I’m going to assume for my own ego that you agree with the progression from expectations to standards, because I feel that it’s a brilliant point (I’m setting the standards low here). So if we assume that standards are the crystallization of expectations, forming standards seems to be at its core forming expectations. Alright, cool. Why do we care again?
Expectations have enormous power over our mental states. For a better take by an actual psychologist read this article. Basically this states that there are realistic and unrealistic expectations, and the latter leads pretty directly to unhappiness. Wait, what? How did we get to happiness from expectations?
You smarty pants already know this one: happiness is what happens when your expectations are met (no we don’t quote Wicked here, our standards are higher than that). When your expectations aren’t met, then you are disappointed.
Managing Expectations
You’ve heard this before. Don’t expect the moon, because it doesn’t even know you exist. (I definitely just made up that phrase, but I’m running with it.) Expectations should be grounded in reality.
If this is something that you struggle with, there are endless articles on how to manage expectations in all kinds of situations. Most likely, there is a method out there that can work for you. One key point here though is that the phrase is managing expectations, not lowering expectations. There is a minimum level of expectation that you really should have, just for the sake of self-preservation. If you have zero expectations from any interpersonal relationships, then you’re going to accept being treated terribly just the same as being treated well, and you’re worth more than that.
So we need to find a balance between unrealistic and enough. That’s going to look different for each person, so you’ll have to decide for yourself what your standard of happiness is. HOLD UP – standards again?
Managing Standards?
Now this isn’t a phrase you’ve heard before. If you search this term, Google tries to redirect you. But should it be a thing? If you manage expectations, and standards progress from expectations, can you manage standards? I’m going to argue no.
As I said earlier, standards are a crystallization of expectations, meaning that they become set from expectations, so in order to manage them you have to start back with managing expectations. Therefore, standards are not immutable, but they can be hard to change. Should we care about changing them though?
Vs. Principles
Let’s go one step further then. Is there another progression point that standards can develop towards? If you read headings then you can guess that I’m going to say yes! I like metaphors, so let’s build one. If expectations are minerals, over time (and pressure and stuff) they can crystallize and form into gems. Then we cut and polish the gems and put them in pretty settings and show them off to our friends and say, “Look at my beautiful jewelry!” And BAM, you’ve got principles.
So what did we add to the mix to get principles? Just a small heap of morality and belief. Principles are what you can display and show off and make big deals about their immutability. You can be a principled person, and that makes you just a little bit better than everyone else. You’ve taken expectations and made them into beliefs.
Of course there’s nothing inherently wrong with principles and morals and beliefs, those are great to have, right? … Yeah, sure. It’s important to believe in things, and it’s important to have a moral compass. And yes, it’s important to have lines that you won’t cross. Why the disdain then? Because I’m a pacifist, and principles can be weaponized.
Ouch, my feelings!
Yes, I’m being dramatic. But only a little. Principles become a problem when you expect other people to abide by your personal ones. Everyone has different life experiences, so even with fairly similar morals (I think that’s the gem setting in the metaphor) the resultant principles can look wildly different. That seems reasonable, right?
Expecting other people to live up to your principles is like expecting them to have the same life experiences as you, and then giving yourself free rein to be disappointed with their inevitable failure. How is this weaponizing? For starters, is there a worse feeling than disappointing someone you look up to? People know when you’re disappointed with them, and if you’re disappointed for reasons outside their control, all you’re doing is breeding ill feelings and resentment.
It’s also hurting you too. You’re choosing to be constantly disappointed, which can have real physiological and psychological ramifications. Having such strong and public principles can also lead to them becoming an integral part of your identity, at which point any personal development becomes much harder to achieve.
In the modern era, this principles as identity problem is magnified by online interactions. These are facilitated by setting up online profiles with facts about yourself, and finding other people with the same fun facts and self-identity. In this way we end up with globalized village ladies looking in and judging everyone outside of their tea circle and then maybe you’ve found a group to hang out with but you’re never challenged, are you?
Anyway. Standards.
I think I got off track a little bit. Maybe. My brain power is running low. I only said this was thoughts, I never said coherent thoughts. Overall though we’ve looked at a gradient of expectations-standards-principles, and my personal conclusion is that as useful as they are, it’s dangerous for them to be set in stone.
I have definitely ignored/forgotten/left out aspects of standards, so do comment any thoughts that you have! If you’ve made it this far, maybe unwind with some quality cat or plant entertainment, or learn about standards of behavior in orchestra rehearsals!
