Why a Size 7 Will Never Work

Standards are a funny thing aren’t they? Ironically mutable, not quite doing justice to the term. Relativity, as it turns out, spares no one. And standards too, fall prey to the one-size-doesn’t-fit-all phenomenon; differing across people, time, circumstance.

Have you noticed that very often we hold others to standards different from those we have for ourselves? And curiously, there’s no consistency in that even. For example, when someone else succeeds at something, we attribute it to an inherent talent. When it’s us who’s done something to be proud of, very often, we ascribe it to painstaking effort and a generous dose of good fortune. When it’s another who holds a morally debatable position that we don’t agree with, we sit on our pedestal nodding disapprovingly, if not somewhat condescendingly. And yet, when it’s us down there, we convince ourselves it’s circumstance that calls for such an action, ‘means to an end’ taken to be reason enough.

Despite the near rant above, I don’t mean to say we’re all hypocrites who can’t stand up for anything. I’m only trying to make sense of that fork in the road we encounter every so often. On the one hand, taking a firm stand on something, staying true to a certain code you define for yourself; and on the other, adapting and realizing that response to change is the only way to grow, to survive (viruses figured that one out a long time ago). As the saying warns: What you resist persists.

What I struggle to fully understand here is how far do you bend? How tightly do you grip onto, what you thought were your guiding principles? When do those guidelines expire? Do they expire? It certainly seems like they do. Take into consideration a choice you made this month and chances are 2 years ago you wouldn’t so much have looked its way, or worse, you’d have looked it straight in the eyes with narrowed, suspicious glare that could burn a hole through it. The point I’m trying to raise is that we’re constantly changing our opinion of what’s right and what isn’t. A little like a GPS which after a missed turn starts to recalculate, we reevaluate our opinions as we go along, making adjustments based on the experiences we’ve had.

Of course keeping up with change is required, you already knew that, but whatever happened to staying true to your beliefs, to holding your ground in the face of adversity, to not taking the easy way out? The more I think about it, the more I come to believe that just as, and I’ll quote from The Fray for its poetic flavor, “sometimes the hardest thing and the right thing are the same”, the path of least resistance isn’t always the wrong one either. Sometimes what comes easy comes easy for just that reason, because it’s right for that time, for that situation. Sometimes it’s best not to read too much into an easier alternative, not to doubt it just because it found you. Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for the tougher, long winding road, personally I question (an understatement actually, grill, interrogate, beat into submission would be more like it) any good thing that dares come my way, but I’m learning that too good to be true isn’t always true and easy doesn’t always have to be hard.

With that settled, my next thought was: how does one identify these sometimes, when it’s better to risk a change in an outlook than to cling to a principle with dear life. And here’re the two things I’ve figured out for me: having a little more faith in intuition and recognizing that each one is different. You’ve got to learn to let your instinct guide you without a paralyzing fear of mistakes. But more importantly you have to recognize that each situation, each individual, each choice is different and you can’t use the one measure to gauge all.

And then sometimes, you just have to do what you think might not be right, if only to know better.

PS

The 7 in the title is with regard to Indian women. The one shoe size you can never find in a sale. Fortunately, I’m not a 7. Unfortunately, being above average doesn’t count when it comes to footwear, larger sizes are near impossible to come by.

Would you like that in a White or Red Sauce?

Do you ever feel like you know or feel about something with absolute certainty? Are you ever completely and utterly sure of a decision? Are you ever sure enough to take a decision? Do you experience that elusive absolute- unquestionable- nothing’s-gonna-change-my-mind kind of surety? The only thing I know with that kind of certitude is that I hardly ever do.

Perhaps doubting a choice as not being perfect isn’t such a bad thing. Perhaps that is what makes life interesting. (Or perhaps this’s just me justifying a lack of conviction.) That you never really know till you know. I remember reading somewhere that happiness is as much a quotient of routine as it is of change and unpredictability. As much as we like knowing that some things will happen without a doubt, I think we also relish the idea of having to bravely (or so we tell ourselves after we’ve found the light switch) walk into the dark.

But I think we’ve also found a convenient way of dealing with it and since I can’t outdo the guy, I shall quote Tony Robbins: “You like the surprises you want. The ones you don’t you call problems.”. The man has a point doesn’t he? As much comfort as we find in familiarity, we dread always knowing where we’re headed. And while most of us like to be prepared for any eventuality, I think it’s inherent in us to crave, every so often, an element of unpredictability, of risk. Given how seldom we can know how things will turn out, maybe this instinct is simply nature’s way of equipping us to deal with the unknown.

But why is it that we rarely feel we’ve made an optimal choice? As though what we’ve picked isn’t perfect, isn’t what will make us most happy? This’s where the human mind, with its tremendous capacity for imagination, demonstrates once again why it’s boss. And that in recent times we’re often drowning in a sea of options, only adds fuel to the fire that the brain insists on setting ablaze each time we’re faced with a choice. The more alternatives we have to pick from, the easier it is for the mind to imagine one that could’ve been better than what’s been selected. No matter which you close the deal on, the brain will visualize one that is better; with all that’s great in your selection, intact and all that isn’t, fixed. (And you can’t blame the mind, it’s only natural to aim for the superlatives, after all even evolution advocates survival of the fittest.)

As Barry Schwartz points out, with all this choice, “…we end up doing better but feeling worse.” He attributes it to Elevated Expectations. With an excess of available options, it becomes very easy for the mind to construct that ideal blend, which like any form of perfection isn’t quite attainable. As a result, we’re never really content (more so since we make that choice), fantasizing of something that can’t be.

So what can one do to make it out alive? There’s no escaping decisions or options, if anything the future will only bring more (one might notice similarity to a certain biological trait in Rabbits) and contentment we need to get a grip on, now more than ever. My method (I wish I could label it with a As Never Before Seen) would be to: Prioritize, Let Go, Stop What If-ing. List the must-haves – be judicious; let go of the rest – you can never have it all, more importantly you never need it all; don’t second guess – you’d feel as much doubt about the pair of jeans you didn’t pick, had you picked them.