THE STANDARD
The Standard: Be everything you’re supposed to be — 2023
You don’t have to be an ardent Bible believer to find some meaning in the stories. Where do you find your standard? Who is your measurement of quality and attainment? What’s the source of your striving, and where does it plateau? The book of Genesis goes through a discourse on The God of the heavens and the earth in His deep and unlimited bag of creativity. He separates the light from darkness — that’s good: in the following days He names the land, the seas, brings forth fruit, grass and seeds, creates the sun and the moon — night and day; the days following He creates animals and then finally, humans — a vision that builds worlds. After all of His creating, He sits back, relaxes and sees that everything He brought into the light, was “good”. Validity of the story is not the point. What’s the takeaway here? What’s yours? First — The Standard Must Be Unseen, Invisible. Second — The Entirety of Our Experienced Existence In This Life Is Relational. No Thing or No One Stands Alone.
There were no standards when it came to relationships for me growing up. The “friends” that I had, talked about me for pursuing what I loved doing. At the end of 2021, two of my closest friends passed away unexpectedly. I had been living in a cycle of ignoring the qualities that mattered, truth spoken in love, curiosity, encouragement. Don’t include time, time’s not a factor. Appearances can wear masks for as long as they see a benefit. Generally for men, crisis must occur for a change to take place. My friends’ passings made me more aware of the unseen qualities of life that give evidence of the eternal. Boldly pursuing what you love forces you to be aware of “friends” that are uncomfortable in your pursuit. Small fish love staying in small ponds. When the goal is to get to an ideal position, title or dollar amount, you are indeed a little fish and low stakes equates to low standards; but if you pursue purpose and don’t conform then you’re the guy that’s weird. We need not wait until we lose our relationship with something or someone to understand how deeply we appreciated it. Death lurks, It’s a wake up call for some, for others it numbs them, for those chosen it’s the end. When the inevitable arrives, what shortcut is there to remedy it? [Amazon Prime Ads enters chat]. The quality of your relationships does a good job reflecting your value of life. Are you valuing yours?
Have you ever asked of life, “what is this, and how does it work?” The “how” is the technique of doing a task skillfully and efficiently. “What” is your relationship (attitude) to it. The foundation of a quality relationship is understanding. When I was first building skills, I sucked, luckily relationships are dynamic. I embarrassed myself repeatedly. I’ve been crossed and both hands and a knee touched earth, lost the click track while drumming (multiple times and an unpardonable sin); I was fired from HR, had to delete podcast episodes because I made errors with the guests, erased footage I just captured while doing videography, dropped the ball articulating on my creative director gig. There’s more. My wife and I recently met up with an old mentor, now friend. The man operates like a machine. I asked him when does he remember becoming so process based. “People always pay attention to the people who win, I deconstructed why people lose.” Becoming hyperaware of why you lose increases your attention to detail. For basketball I’d train 3 times a day; 6-8 hours daily to improve on drums; cutting clips overnight to improve my editing; read a plethora of books to improve in building relationships for podcasting; months of research for starting a business. Through striving for the unseen, you meet people who might be a little further than you to help guide you on the way (shout out to Mark & Joe) Improvement is found in building your relationship with the process. Learning to love the fact that in everything, you can go from being a novice to intermediate to an expert; reveals the depth of gifts that have been instilled in you.
Any man who sets another man as his standard has low standards.
Joseph Bologne Chevalier de Saint-Georges was an elite swordsman, genius violinist, a celebrated soldier in the French Revolution and the first known classical composer of African descent. Being born in the 1700’s it’s said that he overcame the social stigma’s of his era. Joseph raised the standard for men, for Thomas Alexandre Dumas, he simply set a standard to build on. Dumas trained under Saint-Georges. Saint-Georges acted as a bar for Dumas who went on to become the first General of African descent in the French army. Dumas built on what he learned from Saint-Georges. It’s always funny to me when I hear people aspire to be rappers, melodic poets. Yes, it is a skill, but the stake is low. Is like you settle to be used by a variety of platforms while you’re hot then they dump you. Reminds me of, never mind. Why settle to be used by a platform, when you can be it? I digress. The men of the 1700s faced laws seeking to limit their upward mobility on the basis of skin color, represented more than themselves, and they sought solace in the face of death. They literally fought in wars. That’s high stakes. There were men pre 21st century that solely pursued their purposes. These men would spend their entire lives striving uphill to defy conformity’s standards. Paul Robeson, Richard Wright, Benjamin Banneker lived primarily in obscurity but left a lasting impact. They molded who they were internally, it was expressed through their skills that they used to defy all the odds of their time. Inconvenience propelled these men to greatness; obstacles tend to be building blocks.
Any man who sets another man as his standard has low standards.
This standard is the process of aligning the character of your actions to the attributes of the unseen. Not to be seen by others, but to be a presence, a pattern that is felt and an impact that lingers for generations. Everything around you is pulling you to pay attention and react to a world outside of you. Escapism is the anesthesia to life’s challenges. Movements crying for equity paint a false reality that life should be or was ever fair, when it’s the differences that make us special. People are outsourcing their purpose to virtual reality, drones are delivering mail, robots are dropping off food. As society seeks to remove the inconvenience of struggle from our human experience, what it means to be human is changing. We must seek struggle to become who we are meant to be. You are the standard. The vision of you that was implanted in your mind by the unseen, by GOD; only you have the capabilities required to become who you are meant to be. The more you develop a genuine relationship with yourself, the more the ideal version of yourself reveals itself. This is my focus, to see how deep I can go. I know you’re insecure, I am too. To be an active participant in life is to be guided internally, accepting those insecurities, and pushing through them. Life is precious, and there’s too much at stake. It’s playing Grand Theft Auto, Skyrim, Red Dead Redemption. Are you the controlled or the controller? Enough babbling, here’s some data -
“In a paper by Cornell psychologists called “The Ideal Road Not Taken,” researchers surveyed hundreds of participants in six studies. The psychologists identified three elements that make up a person’s sense of self — actual self, ideal self and ought self.
Actual Self: Qualities you believe you have.
Ideal Self: Qualities you want to have.
Ought Self: The person you think you should have been based on your obligations and responsibilities.
When asked to name their single biggest regret, 76 percent of participants said they didn’t fulfill their ideal self. People are likely to let their dreams and aspirations slip by unrealized. They focus on what they should do, instead of what they want.
“When people realize that their life is almost over and look back clearly on it, it is easy to see how many dreams have gone unfulfilled.” – Bonnie Ware” — (Shufeldt, 2022)
The world is available to you, The Standard is infinite, JUST BE. GOOD is the minimum.
