STANDARDS
Circa 2015, one of the heads of the Australian Army made a statement that went something like “the standard you walk past is the standard you are prepared to accept”.
This was in relation to rampant sexual abuse in the armed forces, and was intended to encourage, if not fortify bystanders of endemic behaviour to stand up and challenge it.
In some ways, we do not need further awareness of abuse,
because we live it and we live in it,
every single day.
Those moments of overriding your body are the microcosm of the far more widespread abuse we see, should we choose to open our eyes to the very evident fact of its ubiquitous presence.
One only has to begin with a smidgen of honesty to see that we do not honour ourselves, taking deep and consistent care of ourselves.
Our body is part of the natural world, and yet which other species do we see smoking, over-eating, manufacturing and imbibing products that are aversive to health, and/or allowing laziness to deter them from physical exercise?
Our relationships might look good on the surface, which really is the most we could hope for, as we have all experienced the utter desolation in them, all the while deeply craving love.
We call ‘love’ the features of family life that cover rivalry, bickering, insults, competition, jealousy, imposition, obligation and more.
The corruption of this word on this planet is near complete.
Even our working relationships are characterised by entitlement, only doing the bare minimum of what is expected, not a second more for a cent less.
What then is a standard?
Are we prepared to continue to call abuse merely the extremes of our out-of-control behaviour when it spills into the physical?
Or are we prepared to have a candid look at ourselves, our lives, our behaviour, relationships, families and workplaces and see what we have all contributed to, by living it every day?
It’s a confronting but necessary step to look at what you yourself have had a hand in contributing to, and instead of turning a blind eye, facing squarely up to the reflection of what that offers you and every other around you, shaking off the convenient numbness and distraction sought to avoid seeing what remains in plain sight.
A standard is formed by how you live, every single day.
It’s not a matter of sometimes saying no to something and other times accepting it. It’s not about condemning one area of life while conveniently ignoring another that serves the comfort you prefer to exist in.
And it is certainly not taking the abuse and making it ‘better’, ‘good’, and/or finding a solution for the very real ills of this world. How we live forms the standard. Collectively, as a society, we are living very far from where we would were love and harmony to be the adhered-to standard.
