Grating Expectations
“Should we keep our high expectations of life, or lower them to get along a bit easier?” (with Nicole G)
Our lives would be SO much easier if we could let go of any and all preconceived notions around how they were supposed to turn out. Doing this to ourselves is irresistible, however, no matter how ancient and/or unrealistic our desires (been there, done that, bought the t-shirt, and am heading back for more). It is not impossible to find mature women in their 60s and 70s struggling with almost ridiculous “pretty, pretty princess” dreams – born of a trillion romance novels and a handful of trashy thrillers. It’s sad and a little frightening to meet someone whose inner Cinderella was never allowed to become the CEO of her own law firm … she’s still out in the forest in her pink dress and tiara talking to mice and bunnies, waiting for Prince Charming to make a castle happen. Radically, what I am going to advocate here is stepping out of the expectations misery loop as soon as you discover you’re in it. Instead of heading up the first steep hill of the “If I had known it was going to be like this …” rollercoaster, get off of the tracks and focus on what you’re doing to run your personal human race with integrity. Let’s face it: when we talk about our expectations in life not being met, we’re typically complaining that the gods are spitting on us from above or that other people are consistently failing us and our scheme for bliss here on Earth. Rarely, if ever, do we confess that we’ve lacked the courage and creativity to reinvent ourselves in the face of challenges we have or missteps we’ve taken. Now, we may be 100% justified in feeling we’ve been let down (people can be schmucks and some situations you find yourself in may be horrific) but, again, the responsibility for managing these slings and arrows belongs to us. In the end, I think we must resist the temptation to judge our lives in broad, sweeping gestures; life comes at us in 40 billion pieces and each has the potential to move our dial from delight to despair. We need to cultivate the ability to salvage the joys and repair the damages under an umbrella of growing more fully into who we really are.