Imperfectly Perfect Outcomes

How "perfect" do we reasonably have a right to expect our outcomes in life to be?

I see an awful lot of videos and written commentaries that suggest people have higher and higher standards for what they expect, not only of life, but also of the people in their lives.

I look at some of these... demands... and they strike me as almost impossibly unrealistic.

When did we get the idea that this level of perfection is ours to have... let alone the idea that we deserve it? And not only do we deserve it, but anything short of these sky-high expectations is regarded as a failure.

So many of these video interviews and discussions I watch seem to be with people who sound terribly entitled, in ways I simply can't remember from the time when I was growing up.

Young women looking for a partner/husband, and they roll up with a laundry list of requirements it would be virtually impossible for one single person to hit all the marks.

And everyone almost obsessed with being special. I dunno... around where I grew up, nobody cared whether you were "special" or not. And the term meant you were likely in the "special" classes in school.

All I can really surmise is that we have grown — as a species — more narcissistic in the course of the past five decades.

It's possible that I was raised with fairly low expectations of life. While I might have been hopeful of having the perfect parter/wife — at least when I was very young — I was pretty much raised to expect life and the people in it to be largely IMperfect.

And honestly?

I don't really think of that as a terribly negative approach to life... just a pretty realistic one.

The thing about becoming too attached to these perfect outcomes is that you're very likely to end up with no outcome at all — aka: life passing you by — because nothing is ever good enough.

I have been accused of "settling" in various aspects of my life — in particular by people below the age of 30 — because I was willing to have a "decent" outcome, rather than one that hit all the points on my list of requirements.

Is it really "settling?"

Or is it merely being realistic?

From inside the experience, it was best described as "the best I realistically hoped for." And that's perhaps the key word here: realism.

I can appreciate how some folks arrive at having these unrealistic expectations... as a result of societal massages all around us, insisting that we can "have it all!"

For the most part, I try to remain grateful for having something, instead of nothing... except for an unfilled list of requirements.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great weekend!

How about YOU? Do you have high standards? Are they realistic? Do you believe that you CAN "have it all?" Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2026.01.31 01:13 PST
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