Lowering the Bar

Got a tweet from one of my favorite Waynesburg University goers, Kyle Oland this morning that inspired this very blog post:

Where you place "the bar" has a huge impact on your day-to-day contentment. Example. If you go into a test fully expecting to get an 'A', and you get a 'B', it's a disappointment. If you go into the same test expecting to get a 'C', and you get that same 'B', you did better than you expected and you'll feel much about better about it. You see, we can trick our brains into being happy. Maybe there's a difference between real happiness and fake happiness and stuff, but even fake happiness is worth something - don't think it's not.

This goes beyond studying. Say you're taking a girl out for the first time. Don't overdo it. Don't sell the farm on her (seriously, if you have a farm you gotta keep that shit, it's time to buy not sell), set the bar low. Take her somewhere cheap and don't try too hard to impress her, because if it works, guess what she's expecting next time? You're screwed. See, life isn't about everybody being on a certain level. Life is about putting yourself on a level low enough so you can take the up elevator for awhile. Don't be a hero. Heroes can't improve.

Let's take you back 4 years. That's right, wayyy back into the 2008-2009 timeframe. I was doing the damn thing in high school. I was getting good grades, I had good friends, and I had a lot of fun. One thing I didn't have was an impressive wardrobe. I didn't receive one vote in the yearbook for best dressed. I thought about fixing that up a bit when I went into college, but I decided to set the bar low.

For the first year and a half of college, I wore a lot of basketball shorts and sweatpants. Don't get me wrong, I matched and was clean and everything, but I just didn't have a lot of nice clothes. Guess what? People still liked me. I had a bunch of friends and was making more all the time, because I have a good personality. People will still hang out with the sweatpants kid. Christmas break of sophomore year came and I decided it was time to start raising the bar. I bought some pants, some nice shorts, long sleeve shorts, sweaters, etcetera etcetera. I showed up spring semester looking fresh like three days out of the week (I never overdo anything), and you wouldn't believe the reactions. Girls who were already my friends because they thought I was funny or whatever were like woah look at Jon over there looking good for once. All of my friends liked me more, instantly. Now what about the kids that dressed nicely from day one? Well they set the bar high and everybody expected them to look nice. They could only go down from there. People would like them for their looks and for their personality, but then if they would start dressing less nice, their friends would like them less. It's the truth guys - don't think you're better than this.

Another unrelated note is that my dad continually buys the cheapest possible toilet paper. I came home yesterday for a mid-week mini-weekend and was rudely awakened by the half-ply lifestyle we have here. Pops will spend $2600 on a computer and buy the most expensive whiskey, but the man can't spend 50 cents more to give our bottom sides a smoother ride. Doesn't make sense.

In conclusion, keep those bars low and those toilet papers double-plied.