Several years ago, when I was serving as an athletic director, I was putting together a Student- Athlete Handbook that covered all the rules and regulations for the school district. I met with my Superintendent to discuss some of the ideas and get his input. I shared with him my cover page, Student/Athletes Expectations. I listed ten rules to live by if you wanted to be involved in athletics.

As I read them off, he nodded his head in agreement. When I finished, he told me they were spot on, but they should be considered Standards, not Expectations. In his thinking, expectations are too loose, too wide open and too many if, ands, or butts. But standards are set in concrete, the non-negotiables in life one lives up to.

A standard in life is a moral rule one obeys. I can have the highest expectations in the world, but if I have low standards, then failure is likely. I have discovered that it is better to have high standards rather than high expectations. My standards are set first – my expectations for myself are met second.

I do have standards in which I live by, and I’m not gonna tell you what they are. I have no idea what my father’s standards were in his life, but I know by the way he treated others that his standards were high. What were they specifically, I do not know, but I’ve got a good idea of what they were, and I try to be like him.

In the John Wayne movie, The Shootist, the Duke played J.B. Brooks, an aging sheriff turned gunfighter who was dying from cancer. It was John Wayne’s last film appearance before his death, from cancer, in 1979. Even though the character he was playing was fictional, it was a sincere portrayal of a man dying from something he could not control. Both on and off the screen.

In one particular scene, he said, “I’ve lived most of my life in the wild country and you set a code of laws to live by; I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people, and I require the same of them.”

Pretty simple philosophy, one can assume those were his standards. Sounds biblical to me.

I have good friends in my life that I have no idea what their standards are, but I know that they are high simply by the way they treat me. I can only hope they see that in me.

As a boss, if it is my expectation for all my employees to show up on time, then I must set the standard by showing up on time. As a parent, if it is my expectation for my children to be respectful of others, then I must set the standard of being respectful of others. As a friend, if it’s my expectation of them to be open and honest with me, then I must set the standard of being open and honest with them. If not, then those are double standards, and nobody wants to be accused of having those.

The great thing about my standards is that they’re mine, and I should not expect anyone else to live up to them. We all have our own cross to bear, and how we carry it is personal. Plus, there’s a good possibility that I’m not living up to your standards anyway, so it works both ways. Work on thyself.

You often hear the term, “standard of living” how well-off people are in a country. But it could certainly apply to an individual person as well.

My “standard of living” is not related to my bank account, the kind of car I drive, how big a house I live in, etc. My personal standard of living has nothing to do with material things – but everything to do with my intent and my purpose in life.

So, I could be broke, homeless and hungry, and still maintain a personal high standard of living.

As I look back over life, my expectations have certainly changed. Things I used to care about, I don’t care about anymore. Things I thought were important, just aren’t that important anymore. Things I chased after for years, I stopped chasing a long time ago. The expectations in my life have changed, but my standards have not. Even though I have raised, and even lowered my standards throughout my life, I have tried to stay true to just a few things.

I wish I could put my standards into words like J.B. Brooks did in The Shootist, but I’m not that confident in how I live my life. But there are some things I know to be true, and like John Wayne, I do have a Code of Laws I live by. I don’t intend to talk about them, I’m too busy trying to live by them.

Live life in such a way that others will know that you have learned what’s truly important in life.

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Todd Howey is a columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose articles appear on Fridays. Email comments to [email protected].