This past September, I experienced change that would not have happened if I had not gone to a Lady Gaga concert. Who knew?! :) And maybe it wasn't change so much as just a thought-provoking experience that I still have not resolved. Here are the questions: who decides what the standards are that we hold others to? I imagine those standards as a brick wall--most people stop upon contact (or even upon approach) when they reach a standard they know they shouldn't break, but what happens when those standards are actually glass, or a mirror? And there are suddenly people who can see you breaking that glass or mirror as well...
I'm going to guess that for most people, some sort of religious faith dictates their sense of standards. Those are mostly instilled during childhood. I'd like to think that at some point, standards are a sort of instinct, necessary for survival. There certainly should be some things that we don't do just because...what would happen if we let ourselves stoop that low? And I'm sure we can all think of things to judge, "Goodness, I would never do that!"
Until you do.
Then what?
What if you're sorry only because you know someone might be judging you for it, even if they themselves did it too? That person is part of the mirror image of standards, and you can watch the both of you fumble through it. One of you might break through while the other hangs behind, catching none of the glass. How fortunate. But maybe there was a point before reaching the glass where it would have been possible to just float for awhile. I think that's the place where some people wake up and the standards become the brick wall again and they just stop.
But for those of us who have broken the standards before, we can't go back. We'll be judged. But we still have to be who we are.
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