Dealing with double standards

(Nimue)

I’ve come to the conclusion this year that I need to challenge myself round the issue of double standards. It’s something I’m seeing as increasingly problematic, and that I need to change. I’ve a long history of being prone to having double standards, and that needs to stop.

If there’s one rule for one person, and a different rule for someone else, there’s not a lot of scope for fairness and justice.

What I’ve been working with are thought forms like ‘everyone is doing their best’ and ‘if I can fix things then it’s on me to fix things’. What I ask of myself is not what I ask of other people. I think I need to put a lot less pressure on myself, and to hold other people to higher standards.

I want to believe the best of everyone. I get very uncomfortable when that thought is hard to hold. I want to believe that everyone is doing their best – limited by resources, personal struggles etc etc. We’re all doing our best – that seems like a kind and helpful position to hold. Where it falls down is when there’s every reason to think a person could do better and just can’t be bothered or doesn’t see the point. I’m exploring the implications of being a bit less accepting and a bit more willing to hold people to account.

Acceptance is a path that in the short term reduces conflict. It tends to reduce other people’s discomfort at my own expense. It can be a way of supporting and enabling problematic behaviour, and it’s that last element that has me looking hard at my own choices right now. If I let things go, if I make all the problems my problems, and I don’t hold people to the same standards as I hold myself, what am I allowing?

I’ve been thing a lot about my own experiences of other people’s double standards over the years, and how that’s impacted on me. If something matters when it affects someone else, but it doesn’t matter when it’s me being affected, that’s felt really dehumanising. When other people’s mistakes have been forgivable, but mine have not, that’s been painful. I’ve internalised too much of that. The double standards have informed my sense of self worth. It’s a lot to square up to.

I can do better than this. I’m not going to demand supernatural levels of perfection of myself. I’m giving myself permission to be more human, and more whole and from here I’m going to stop saying ‘everyone is doing their best’ to myself when someone hurts me.