The ideal man, what is he? Many people aspire to a certain standard, try to become what they are not. A good example is the modern obsession with beauty standards. Women even have exact measurements down to a centimeter (90 — 60 — 90), and men certainly must be pumped up and brutal.
Standards are everywhere. There are standards of earnings, standards of professional success, standards of beauty, standards of humor and so on. These standards set the tone for our lives. There are not many people who can give a damn about all this, because we are social beings.
Many people rush from one extreme to another, sometimes trying to meet the standards 100%, then completely denying them.
The perfect man, does he exist?
I am reminded of a story, unfortunately I do not remember where read it. The point is. After the second world war, the Americans ordered a study of what ergonomics should be in the cockpit: the distance to the wheel, the height of the chair, the location of the devices, etc.
Scientists immediately conducted a study, conducted measurements of hundreds of pilots and made a list of the average size of the human body, such as the "average pilot".. It would seem that the task is done. However, there was one scientist who decided to check what percentage of pilots fits the description of this “average”. And you know what happened? He found none. After that, the cockpit is configured only for a particular pilot.
This example illustrates well that there is no norm. And it does not exist not only in the physical sense, but also in the intellectual, social and so on. Each of us is a unique unit, with a completely individual set of properties.
There is no ideal person, but there are standards and they should not be neglected.
Standards
Each person has his own set of individual qualities. But this does not mean that we should neglect these qualities, since all the same no two people are the same.
On the contrary, it is necessary to focus on these qualities. But on what occasions? Only in cases where it is appropriate and justified.
For example, it makes no sense to recruit people with low intelligence into nuclear scientists. In this case, a certain limit of intellectual abilities must be drawn, a certain standard below which one can not fall in the selection of this profession.
The same applies to beauty standards. For example, it is reasonable and justified that the model recruit thin and tall women with certain facial features. But we must remember that designers choose these women because of the fact that they look good clothes, not because they are perfect.
However, due to the fact that our world has become highly information-related, a strange effect. People have access to almost any information. If a person learns that in the modeling business there are high standards for the appearance of models, a person begins to perceive the appearance of these standards as ideal. Otherwise, why the selection? Although in fact they are not, but simply meet the standards of the profession.
The same happens with the standards of earnings. Take business, for example. To be successful in it, you must have a certain set of personal properties. However, it must be remembered that these business standards are also not ideal, but simply meet the parameters set by the profession of a businessman. We think that because they earn more, they are somehow better than us. That's not so. They earn more only because their profession involves operations with money.
It may seem like I'm trying to devalue ideals. In fact, this is not so, they are needed, but not in order to correspond to them, but to set us a coordinate system so that we can navigate in what qualities are necessary for a certain activity.
Strengths and weaknesses
Each of us has his own set of qualities. Every person has qualities that make him or her superior to others. There are also qualities that we have not developed enough.
The ideal person is the one who has all the qualities developed to the maximum extent. Of course there is no such person.
What shall we do? If we want to be the most effective( and not ideal), it is necessary to determine our strengths and weaknesses. This is done only empirically. After that, each person faces a creative task that should answer the following questions. What activities most fully utilize our strengths and do not affect the weak? What is the most successful behavior strategy in my activity?
If a person can find the answers to these two questions, he can be successful. If he begins to realize himself without regard to his qualities, and focusing on the ideal, then most likely he will be disappointed.
The same goes for our expectations. To expect another person to live up to the ideal is somewhat unreasonable.