I've come to remember something...something that has only come up in blips and quick thoughts in my past.

You know, I hear people tell others all the time to "lower their standards" as advice for those who have been looking for someone special for a long time but haven't found someone. I think that's stupid. You don't lower your standards (though many people start doing so automatically after a period of unsuccessful trying)! That's horrible advice! What, if you want a temple marriage you just start saying "not anymore"?

So I thought a better term might be to "lower expectations". No one is perfect. The person you're looking for won't be. And if they are close, they probably aren't looking for you. That's probably true. They won't fill everything on your list and match everything on your criteria. This sounded good, but after further thought I thought this was sometimes confusing. I mean, lower your expectations but not your standards? What if your expectations are the same as your standards?

So now, here's the latest evolution of thought. "Change your view". Because I realized this, we of this generation have been seen as the generation of entitlement. That means we feel like we deserve things. That's the key word. I deserve a good job because I graduated from a good college and have an MBA, good grades, or whatever. I deserve to be treated nice by everyone because I'm not a bad person. I deserve a person with this and that because I'm a child of God, and have been taught this and that growing up, and I'm a decent person with this set of skills, and that I deserve the best.

Truth is, worth does not equal worthiness. We are child of God, but at the same time, we need to understand that even if we give our best in everything we are still pretty much as useful as dust. (Mosiah 2:21).

So the best thing then is to change our view of others and what we deserve, and instead, look at people for who they are instead of what they can do for you or make you be. Besides, we ourselves need plenty of sprucing up before we can demand anything of anyone (if we ever can reach that point).