Lowering/Raising the Bar

“The future of the world is in the hands of disciplined people.  The undisciplined waste their energies with themselves and their own tangles.”

~ Author Unknown

Why is it that when we run into difficulties we lower our expectations? 

I have seen countless women who dreamed of Prince Charming while they were young girls marry very different men.  Prince Charming was different for each woman, but he was their ideal. 

As we grow older and we experience relationships ending in misery and hurt, we begin to lower the bar for our prince charming.  For example, we may say “I’ll never marry a man who smokes”, then we find the “perfect” man, but he is a smoker, so we lower our standard just a little to accommodate him.  It is as if we don’t believe that our ideal man is out there somewhere for us, or rather that we don’t believe that God will lead us to that man.

The fact that the man smokes should be an indication from God that he isn’t the one for us, rather than an indication that our standards are too high.

I hear about countless women, world-wide, becoming disgusted at the behaviour of modern men.  Just the other day I had an experience where a young man I know told me in detail about a horrific video he saw on the internet.  I was shocked that he would think I would find it entertaining, and I wondered how his girlfriend could put up with it.

I begin to wonder, if all the women in the world decided not to accept anything less than their ideal, would the world-wide situation improve?  Wouldn’t it force men, world-wide, to live up to a higher standard?

The same is true in the way we teach our children, and the way we live our life.  Set high standards for yourself.  Expect 100%, then be proud of yourself for getting 90% because you know that if you had aimed for 50% you would never have got 90%.  A person can do this in all aspects of their life, from school marks, Christian duty, work, housework, relationships and so on.

"I had rather attempt something great and fail, than attempt nothing and succeed”

~ Robert Schuller