Consistency

Consistency. It’s such a tricky subject to define. People need to be consistent. They shouldn’t necessarily be predictable or boring, but they do need to be reliable, and their actions must be comprehensible.

This applies to everything in life. Take dance: I don’t want to be boring on the floor, but my leads need to make sense. I need to set a mood and stick with it. I need to be trusted . I can be a communicative and fun lead without being predictable.

The same applies to work, friendships, conversations… At work you need to be trusted to perform at a certain capacity. With different friends you may not act the same way, but at a certain point you need to choose a certain set of behaviors that define you with that person. In conversation, one needs to play some sort of role; change your mind all you want, but at least make your decisions and comments consistent.

And we all know it applies to relationships. Nobody wants surprises there. (From dance class today: “If she has a hairy chance I want to know before I take off her shirt…”) I’m not claiming that personal disclosure shouldn’t grow with comfort level, I’m saying that at both the micro and macro level we need to know where the other is. To go back to the dance analogy, there will be different dances and consequently varying leads/choreography. There’ll even be a time for learning new dances. But all along, the process needs to be the same: familiarizing yourself with your partner’s lead and/or follow and not losing control. When you’re that close to someone and you lose control, you may both get really hurt… and I’m not just talking about failed acrobatic steps.

None of this should seem like rocket science. And perhaps I’m beating a dead horse with all these examples. But simple as this idea is, we all fall victim to inconsistency. When we expect that A will lead to B we are often disappointed when we end up with C instead. Or perhaps we end up with nothing at all. See, the obvious truth is that people often don’t make sense.

Why do people lead others on and then bail out at the last minute? Why do some take so much from other people and then refuse to reciprocate when it’s their turn? Why do others change so much that you wonder how someone could still be the same person?

Perhaps we all have this point where we just top off, where we can’t be consistent anymore. It’s like how one can only eat at fancy restaurants night-after-night for so long… until the money’s gone. Well, sometimes we commit ourselves to things that we just can’t carry out with the same behaviors as before. We’d like to dream that we can handle it all, and still be ourselves, but we can’t. We’re tiny people with huge visions.

So what’s the solution to all this? We know how we should behave, but then we have these predispositions and limitatations. My response is my answer to every problem: think about it. Recognize how you’ve behaved in the past, and try to stick with that. Don’t be fake: it’ll catch up with you.

It doesn’t pay to be amazing one day out of twenty. What really matters is being a good (or bad) person all twenty days. Figure out who you want to be, and try to be that person. Don’t fuck with people’s heads. Don’t commit to something that you can’t do. Don’t treat me like I treat you just for the sake of reciprocity; treat me how you’re always going to be able to treat me.

Thanks for hearing me out. All of this came up the other night when someone confused me with their actions. I didn’t care what was going on with us, so long as it made sense – so long as it was explainable – so long as it fit the setting… Even me: I may say a lot of nonsense, but at least I’m consistently crazy, right? Thank you for your time.