Standards

When the topic is brought up people sometimes ask me, "What did you do to lose weight?" From experience I know they're expecting an answer from among the following:

-stopped drinking soda
-reduced fat intake
-tried the Atkins plan
-gastric bypass
-acupuncture
-diet and exercise

While these are all methods people have used to achieve weight loss, none of them are the answer to the generalized question: "How does one improve?"

Getting somewhere implies that one has a destination. That mark is the standard. Seven percent body fat. One hundred words per minute. Eighty cases an hour. The word "goals" is distracting. They are too readily viewed as landmarks--as opposed to constants--and can have a funny way of disrupting progress. In themselves they are not bad (to a degree this is a semantic exercise) but their adoption and how they are pursued can be. To be better is to adopt a new standard.

Then what's the difference between standards and expectations? One seems more concrete than the other, though they essentially carry the same idea: How should this be done?

People can have standards; for the food they eat, the neighborhood they live in, who they date, their personal health or the conduct of their government. It's very interesting to note that these views are as readily applied to others as they are to ourselves*. Moreover, the adoption of such attitudes is completely voluntary and as a result inconsistent among the population. It's unfortunately common then to encounter people who have no standards and the problems that thrive as a result. Think of some examples.

Entities, like a store, can also have standards. The quality of the products they sell, employee productivity, target demographics and customer service. I have seen stores with high standards flourish and those with none squander. The fate of an entity rests more on this than that of a person, though it must not be forgotten that the latter composes the former. Even the federal government considers a corporation as a single person on paper. For tax purposes.

Standards largely determine the quality of a thing. It was the adoption of specific expectations for what I eat and how I live that enabled me to improve. Drafting any rule is to think about "what is acceptable in this regard?" Thought, of course, makes all the difference. To have any minimum expectation implies that the topic has been deliberated, which is the key to advancement. People don't create a new world or a better human just listening to their feelings.


*An interesting development in the construction of [Social Views].