Uphold your standards, no exceptions

Emma's Enlightenments

This Week’s Advice: Upholding Your Standards. 

I have talked a lot about keeping yourself, yourself.  

I talk about this a lot because it is important, and there are so many different branches to go off.  

This week, I want to branch from upholding standards that are important to you. 

Lowering your standards is essentially lowering yourself to fit the mold of others. By lowering your standards, you are shrinking yourself.  

Shrinking yourself to be smaller can seem a small thing at first, but after a while, you become so little no one sees the real you. 

Don’t make exceptions for people who do not accept you. 

I first did this when I was with someone who I cared for deeply. The first time they did something to hurt me, I brushed it off and told myself that next time I would stand up. 

Then, they did it again, just in a slightly different font. This time, I told myself it was okay because they didn’t mean to and because it was a different situation than the last. I told myself they had a reason and it wouldn’t happen again. 

To only my surprise, it happened again, but in a slightly different way. 

But I kept telling myself that it was okay and they didn’t mean to, because each time it was a different situation. 

Unknowingly, I shrank myself, and my mind, so small no one else could see me anymore, only them. I felt so little and unseen I kept forgiving them because I thought this person was the only one who could actually see me. 

This wasn’t because that fact was true, it was because I made myself unavailable to the people around me. 

Again, lowering your standards is only lowering yourself. 

Your standards are an essential part of who you are as a person. If you want to be held high, then don’t let anyone hold you below them. If you want a certain thing, then you should have that thing, no matter how big it is. 

There is someone, or something, out there for you that will give you just that. 

This doesn’t just need to be related to a person, but even a class or a job. If they are not treating you how you need to be, or not upholding the standards you expected, then it is not cruel to leave. 

The same goes for friendships, and frankly, anything.  

Feeling content in yourself is important, and the right situation will not make you feel too much or like you are begging for your standards to be upheld. 

Build yourself up. Don’t break yourself down.