What is your Yardstick?

In writing yesterday about success, I wrote about measuring yourself by your own yardstick, rather than one that is imposed by, or suits someone else. From the moment we are born, we are being measured against some while-not-always-arbitrary standard, one not necessarily our own. At birth, if you are born in a hospital in the US, you get an APGAR score, which has to do with color and breathing and other standards of newborn vitality. But while a good APGAR may measure the unlikelihood of infant mortality, it is not an infallible measure, and some babies with poor APGARS defy the odds and manage to grow and thrive. We know the fallibility of standardized test scores and how they may measure how frightened or upset a child is, rather than their intellectual achievement. And while these may seem extreme examples, aren’t we surrounded by suggestions, if not downright dictums about how to measure success in life? Some manufacturers of luxury cars tell us that if we are not driving their product, then we have simply not “arrived”. The same goes for other luxury products, like purses, and watches, and shoes that proclaim that a woman has attained some standard by being able to afford these luxury items. Not to say that men are excluded from this race, and their toys also define them. All I am speaking about, is the imposition of a yardstick not one’s own, and then defining oneself as a failure because of it. If I were to allow the makers of the BMW motorcar to define me, then I would indeed have failed to measure up. However, since I don’t know them, and they don’t personally know me, why should I let them set my standard? Same goes for the nameless crowds who need to be seen in the “best” stores, or the “in” watering holes. They don’t define the extent of my success or failure; do you allow them to define yours? Every day that I get to know myself better, I add to the truth of creating my own standard, and as I add to this truth, I am less likely to be made unhappy by not meeting someone else’s. Measuring yourself against someone else’s standard is as ludicrous as someone measuring the “redness” of my hair. There is no redness in my hair. My hair is salt and pepper, and has been for the last many many years. It was not red and will not be red, just as my height should not be measured against the norm for a runway model. I am far shorter and have no hope, at this time in my life, of reaching that standard. I am learning, and I hope teaching as well, to know myself better, to accept myself more respectfully, and to find harmony and balance in my life. And I am adjusting my yardstick as I go. I hope that you will do the same for yourself.