Memo 040: Selective Enforcement

The costs of making exceptions

Opening Statement

Most of us would say we have ‘standards.’ We can articulate them clearly. We know what we deserve, we know what we would advise, and we know what we would never tolerate. Especially when it comes to other people.

But when it comes time to apply these standards to our own comfortable reality, the standards have a tendency to soften. Although you know what you’d tell a friend to do, you just don’t do it. This is selective enforcement.

If we already know what’s right, why is it so hard to apply it to our own lives?

Exhibits

Gloss Docket

Grabbing: gelato and a i <3 NY tee

Listening: Dancing on the Wall by Muna

Obsessing: My Heyday poster is live all over Williamsburg, have you spotted her?? (Use code AlyssaFC40 to save on your next heyday facial)

Styling: ballet flats and button downs

Stepping into: never making an exception on my standards

Testimony

Each one of us has looked at a friend and said without hesitation “leave that job” or “end that relationship” or “stop tolerating that.” It’s easy to draw this conclusion when you’re an objective third person and your emotions are not involved.

But when its your own life and you have to protect a version of reality that is familiar to you, its a different story. Suddenly, those standards soften and we convince ourselves that “this is different” or “its not that bad” or “ it will resolve itself soon.”

When you have standards but you don’t consistently apply them in every aspect of your life, you lose alignment with your glossed self.

Every time you make an exception for something that doesn’t meet your standards, you send yourself a message: this is acceptable and I am not going to acquire better. Over time, those exceptions become your reality.

Becoming your glossed self requires you to apply your standards consistently. If you would tell your friend to leave, you leave. If you would tell your friend to ask for more, you ask. If you would tell your friend this isn’t good, stop accepting it for yourself. Fully.

The first step is taking inventory about where you’re making exceptions. This week, ask yourself where you’re giving advice but not taking it. Where are you tolerating something you wouldn’t recommend? Who or what are you protecting at your own expense?

Closing Argument

The ruling is in: Your standards are only as real as your willingness to enforce them.

You do not become your glossed self by betraying what you know you’re supposed to do. Anyone or anything that requires you to compromise your own clarity, desires, or self respect is in your way.

The well-glossed are hereby estopped from making exceptions. Judgment entered against selective enforcement.

Briefing adjourned,

xo,

Alyssa