“Any fool can make a rule And any fool will mind it.”
Henry David Thoreau

What needs to happen for you to feel satisfied?

– Win a million dollars?
– Receive a compliment from your boss?
– To have a physique that Miss (or Mister) Universe would envy?
– To achieve spiritual enlightenment?
– To become the president of the country?
– To achieve all your personal goals?
– To have a harmonious family?
– To drive a Mercedes?
– To meet important people?
– To run a company with thousands of employees?

Finally, what would you need to have or do to feel completely satisfied? If at least a few answers come to mind, it means you’re ready to analyze this together…

The Dictatorship of Norms!

On the evening of July 13, 1994, I was in Krakow with some Italian friends when we were stopped and taken to the police station, accused of “disturbance of the public peace.”
What had happened? Quite simply, the Italian team had won the World Cup match against Germany, so our whole group thought it appropriate to run through the entire city, in cars decked out with Italian flags, honking and spraying ourselves with champagne (between you and me, a few days earlier I was in Bucharest when Romania beat Argentina, and I think the number of Romanians out on the streets was greater than what was recorded in December ’89…)

Getting back to our story, we were, fortunately, lucky enough to encounter a police commander who appreciated Italy’s performance, so we were released after paying a modest fine and promising him we’d “behave.”

A Celebration Without a Cause?

Once the excitement had faded, I couldn’t help but wonder: what was actually the reason for our satisfaction? I hadn’t personally gained anything from that victory, nor had I participated in or contributed in any way to achieving it.
Consequently, I had to admit that there was no rational justification for our sense of satisfaction, other than the influence of a mental cause-and-effect relationship: “If the national soccer team wins, you can feel happy; if it loses, you have reason to be unhappy and depressed” (ironically, after the “arrest,” the entire group arrived in Genoa just in time to see the Italian team brought to its knees by the Brazilians).

How many norms (or rules) of this type are deeply ingrained in each of our minds? An infinite number, I guarantee it!
Every time you make a judgment, express an opinion, experience an emotional state, or make a decision about something, what you’re actually doing is drawing a parallel, a comparison between the present situation and a whole series of norms you hold in your mind.
It is as if your mind becomes a small courtroom whose judge, with the “laws” (rules) in hand, delivers a “verdict”: whether you should be satisfied or not, whether you behaved well or poorly, whether your values were respected or not.

The Inner Courtroom: Who Judges Your Happiness?

For example, if I were to ask you, “Do you have a beautiful body?”, the answer would depend entirely on how you assess whether or not you meet a series of conditions that, in your opinion, are necessary to characterize a body as beautiful.
We could also address a more “sensitive” issue: do you consider yourself a good lover (or, why not, a good partner)? Almost certainly, your answer will depend, once again, on certain norms you have accepted, on a standard you have agreed upon, and based on which it can be determined whether someone falls into the category of “good lovers” or not.

If you answer “yes,” you immediately know what norms you had in mind, which brings me to the key question: “How do you know whether or not you’re a good lover?” You might answer that your partner says so, or you might think of “quantitative” parameters, such as duration and intensity, or the frequency with which you change partners.

Someone else might answer “no,” because, when faced with the same norms and standards, they feel they don’t meet them. This brings us back to the key question: “Is someone who doesn’t consider themselves a good lover truly not one?” Could it be that this person feels this way simply because they’re using inappropriate norms and standards?

In both situations, the terms of comparison prove to be of fundamental importance. It is possible that a certain person fully satisfies their partner’s demands, but since their performance does not meet the “norms” they personally recognize, they will never feel up to the task.

The fact is that we have standards for defining almost everything: success, intelligence, wealth, security, and so on. We are taught to define nearly everything in our lives in relation to our system of standards, which implicitly controls our thoughts and reactions. Unfortunately, I think you’ll agree with me if I say that these norms have been arbitrarily imposed on all of us—and often in a completely inappropriate way.
These norms are (as I had the opportunity to write in a previous article) the result of a barrage of information and opinions we receive from the moment we are born from parents, teachers, acquaintances, friends, television, books, etc.

The Trap of Imposed Standards in a Consumer Society

And so we arrive at the central point of this article—that of finding the answer to the question: “Are the norms that guide your life today truly valid for the person you are?”

Have you perhaps become “stuck” with norms you used in childhood?
Do you ever find that norms that were valid at one point, in a certain context, now seem to make no sense at all?
In general, do you follow the norms you have chosen for yourself, or do you struggle to conform to absurd standards that someone else has led you to believe are correct?

I’d like to digress briefly to discuss the concept of standards.
We live in a consumer society, where economic development demands that the public spend more and more to meet ever-rising standards. This may be positive for the economy, but the price paid is the perpetuation of a state of dissatisfaction. As the world becomes richer—in the sense that it possesses more and more things—it will become increasingly dissatisfied.
This relationship, tolerable as a “rule of the game” in the realm of consumption, becomes absolutely dangerous when it comes to the image we form of ourselves.

The Danger of the “Perfect Image”

Let’s look, for example, at how a standard of female beauty is created. Ten extraordinarily beautiful girls are selected, and they are forbidden from doing anything other than tending to their physical appearance: aerobics, massages, rest, a special diet, etc. From this group, the most photogenic one is chosen and “handed over” to a team of elite professionals to be styled and made up. Then 200–300 photos are taken under the best lighting and environmental conditions. From these hundreds of photos, a few are selected—those where she appears most flatteringly and has a seductive expression. These shots are then digitally edited to remove any imperfections. Finally, the most expressive image is chosen and placed on the cover of a fashion magazine, with the implicit message to the female audience: “This is how you should be!”

To avoid being accused of “bias,” we’ll acknowledge that men aren’t entirely immune to this “madness” either: constantly confronted with models who look charming, have the bodies of bodybuilders, or claim to have the performance of porn stars, they end up minimizing their own qualities and maximizing their flaws, gradually losing confidence in their own abilities.
Under these circumstances, it is no surprise that a lack of self-confidence has become a chronic and pervasive problem.
But since we’ll have a chance to explore this topic in more depth later, I suggest we get back to the matter at hand.

Are Your Rules Helping or Hurting You?

The logical consequence of what I’ve presented is that it’s not worth spending too much time and energy wondering whether the standards we use are correct or not. Instead, it makes sense to ask ourselves whether they are useful to us or not, whether they help us achieve our goals, or whether they are obstacles; whether they allow us to be satisfied with ourselves, or condemn us to a state of permanent frustration.
For example, we all want to be loved and appreciated. If we accept as a rule or standard that in order to feel this way we must receive positive approval from every person we meet, it is clear that we will never succeed in fulfilling our aspirations.
Similarly, if we accept a norm that says that when someone loves us, they must always conform to our wishes, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to find a partner willing to put up with us. What can we do? In general, to determine whether a norm is helpful to us or not, there are three basic criteria:

– A rule is harmful if it is impossible to follow. We invite you to pick a few of the rules you use at random, and we guarantee that after a brief analysis, you will realize that many of them “ignore” reality or contradict the most basic common sense.

– A rule is harmful if following it causes your mental state to be influenced by an entity over which you have no control. It is obvious that most of us allow ourselves to be psychologically conditioned by external factors, ranging from the behavior of others to the weather, sports results, or political events.

– A rule is harmful if it provides us with too few opportunities to think positively and an excess of opportunities to think negatively. The criteria we use are often not only complex but also contradictory, leading us toward goals that are difficult to achieve and consequently steering us toward frustration.

The norms we set for ourselves can determine our fate. Through them, we can lay the foundation for our success or hasten our downfall; we can find the key to positive relationships with others or a constant source of trouble in our daily lives.
Even if accepting certain rules may, at certain points in time, be a compromise in line with our short-term interests, if we grant them permanent status—without questioning them—we will almost certainly create sources of frustration and dissatisfaction.

Practical Exercise: Auditing Your Personal Norms

This is why I suggest you try to “dissect” the system of norms you follow. Try to always be your own “judge” who decides which norms must be followed and which do not.
From my own experience, I recommend you try the following exercise: take a few sheets of paper and write one of the following questions on each, then reflect in silence to find and write down answers as complete as possible:

– What do you need, what must happen for you to feel successful?

– What do you need to feel loved by your children, your spouse, or anyone who is important to you?

– What do you need to feel confident in yourself?

– What do you think could make you feel like you’re excelling in a field that interests you?

– What do you need to feel …………….? (List here all the positive feelings you want to experience: love, competence, satisfaction, etc., in order of priority).

By doing this exercise/test, you’ll quickly discover that many of the rules you’ve followed are completely meaningless, others are contradictory, and many have been imposed on you (more or less subtly) from the outside. Simply putting them down on paper will be a great help, even if you don’t feel ready to question them. The time will come when you’ll find the time to reflect on whether it’s time for some to be eliminated, changed, or—why not—developed. By repeating this exercise/test from time to time, you’ll take an extremely effective step toward your personal success.
Moreover, if you ask this set of questions to those close to you, you’ll have the opportunity to discover new traits in people you’d like to think you know almost everything about…
Good luck!