“Anything less than the best is a felony” – Vanilla Ice

This is day two of my quest to post 30 posts in 30 days.

Having a strong set of personal standards is not always easy. It leaves you open at times to being disappointed with the world around you. You may find that your job is substandard. Some of your friends might not be all that you would want them to be. Even your family members can seem like a iffy sometimes. This is a normal reaction to wanting something better for yourself.

I recently had just such an experience with my job. I was sitting in my office of the rather swanky hotel in Chicago I was working for. I was counting out my bank drawer sitting next to one of my staffers commiserating about my day when I had a flashback of when I was working as a cashier in a supermarket as a 19 year old. I had this clear memory of what my day consisted of at that job. I would spend the day standing in one place, answering questions, taking complaints, checking people out and at the end of the day I would go into the cage and count my (their) money. You might be thinking that this sounds like a pretty average day for every supermarket cashier and you’d be right. What struck me about this little flashback was what I was doing at the time I had it. I was just wrapping up my shift (I managed the front desk) and had just spent the day standing in one place, answering questions, taking complaints, checking people out and it was now the end of the day where I sat in my cage like office counting my (their) money.

This was actually the experience that led me to take a closer look at all of the different aspects of the life I was living. What I saw was stunning. Nothing felt as it should be. Everything was familiar. Everything felt safe. I was miserable for it. It was then that I realized that I had lost my true self. That I had traded my ambition and desire and motivation for a life that was familiar and safe. This is how I ended up working 12-14 hours per day sometimes not leaving the building for days (one of the pitfalls of working in a hotel, always a bed to sleep in). I hadn’t done anything for myself in years. I hadn’t taken any risk. I hadn’t gone outside of my comfort zone. I hadn’t really lived.

I took some time to really assess what mattered to me in my life and I made a vow that I would treat these things as my standards of living. There would be no more compromise. There would be no more fear of what could “go wrong”. There would be no more settling. If the people places and things in my life didn’t fit my standards then something would have to change. Within weeks of setting my standards I no longer worked at the hotel. The position, the company and my superiors weren’t living up to my expectations. They didn’t fit into my set of standards and so a change was made.  Leaving that job was the single most liberating moment I had ever experienced. I also made changes for my health. I started sleeping and exercising more. I took on a diet of raw foods and watched as I lost over 30 lbs in just 6 weeks. I had been vegan for 7 years but was still carrying extra weight that I shouldn’t have been. I’m now in the best shape of my life at 37.

One of the great things about setting your standards and sticking to them is that your life starts to fall into its natural rhythm. Change begets change and you start living the life you’ve always dreamed of. Everything falls into place because you’ve eliminated the possibility of anything holding you back. More and more you see the things that you want for yourself come to you because really, they should have been there all along.

We all know what we want from our lives. We all know what matters. At times we have trouble defining it but it’s there. Once it’s established and accepted and enacted, then anything less than the best truly is a felony.

Thank you for being here. Talk to you tomorrow.

-JB

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Today’s music:

Ice Ice Baby

by Vanilla Ice

Available on: