You Become Your Standard
When I was in college, my closest friend was a guy I’ll call Stevie the philosopher atheist. When we met, I was an agnostic verging on faith and conversion. So we made quite the pair.
Well, every Thursday night we’d play pick-up basketball, go to his place, eat a crazy amount of food, watch this terrible reality TV show, and then play video games until about 1 am.
I loved everything about our Thursday night routine except the 30 minutes spent watching the reality show. So, one day I asked Stevie the philosopher atheist why he loved it so much. And he said, “Because whenever I start feeling bad about myself or my life, I can just watch them and know, I could be doing a lot worse.”
One of the truest tropes I’ve ever heard is: You don’t rise to the height of your goals. Instead, you fall to the level of your standard.
In other words, you become your standard. And Stevie’s standard was set so low that it didn’t really bother him when his grades started dropping, when he grew less virtuous over time, or that he lived an all together selfish life. In comparison to the TV show, he was a good dude. The problem is, if you, as Stevie did, measure your life against a standard you’ve already surpassed, then you are robbing yourself of the joy of meeting the person you could be.
There is something about the human spirit that is enlivened and enlarged by striving for something that seems out of reach that brings out the best in us.
This week’s Gospel ends with the phrase, “He did all things well.”
That’s a great standard for your life and for mine, isn’t it? At the end of the day, looking back, can I say, “I did all things well”?
It takes a lot of courage to do that. It takes a lot of courage to ask yourself, did I love well? Did I work well? Did I speak well? Did I suffer well? Did I celebrate well? Did I listen well? Did I do all things well today?
And it takes a lot of hope to ask God for another day to try again tomorrow to reach a height you couldn’t quite reach today.
As you go to Mass this weekend, ask yourself and ask God, “What area of my life am I doing well?” and, “What area of my life do I need to grow?
God bless you, have a great Sunday!
