Bar

I have mentioned before how my doctor said “the bar is set pretty low.”  What led to him saying that was my saying I though I was a better driver than some.  When in rehab. I had been advised it would cost me $500 to see a guy on the Sunshine Coast and get my licence back.  I then needed my licence back in a hurry.  I went and saw my doctor.  He did some tests and gave me a form for Main Roads.  He said his big personal test was “would I want this person on the roads knowing my kids are there?”  It cost me nothing.
I think about that quite a bit, but it was the saying “the bar is set pretty low” that I have been considering. 
Every organization sets a bar.  Some are set really high.  There are rules for just about everything.  Some clubs are impossible to get into unless a person is the right pedigree.  I can only talk about organizations I have been in.  I cannot really talk about organizations I have not been in because …well…I have not been in them.  Also, I couldn’t if I wanted to be.  The bar set excludes me.
In table tennis we play with a white ball.  A bar that is set says we should not wear a white shirt.  This to me is perfectly reasonable.  I was watching a division one game one time with a piece of white paper in my hand.  A player brought it to my attention and I put it out of sight.  The last thing a player needs is a white ball emerging from a white background.  Reactions are in milliseconds, so a delay is not wanted. 
Our serving rules are another bar.  The ball can at no stage be hidden and must be thrown up at least bat height.  The rules are designed so that no player has an unfair advantage.  My serve is sometimes sus.  Not for an unfair advantage, but because of a bad habit I have.  I thrown the ball up but can delay withdrawing my throwing arm.  This can hide the ball from an opponent.  I pointed that out to someone who was doing it who now is a top division one player.  When he served his ball into his arm, he looked straight at me.
For my own life the bar needs to be pretty much on the ground.  I may aim high but wanting it is different to doing it.  Thankfully mostly the bar can be set fairly high.  I do the right thing not so much because I have to, but because I want to.  To me there is a huge difference between not doing something because of the negative consequences, and not doing something because of the positive consequences.  In me for some reason, there seems to be a bias to the negative.
In some places the bar is so high I could never attain.  An all women’s club for example, I would be excluded from for obvious reasons.  In some other places the bar is not so high I cannot attain, but I need to comply.  For my personal life the bar is more like a moving graph than a stationary object.  Sometimes the bar is high and sometimes it is more like a trip hazard.  Whatever the case, with help, I can do it.