“Life… It tends to respond to our outlook, to shape itself to meet our expectations.”
– Richard M. DeVos
One of the best stories that illustrates how we can have great, immense expectations I heard from my art teacher in my last year of high school. He was telling us an anecdote from his personal experience that goes something like this: when he was in his first year of uni, of course he fell in love with a beautiful girl and thought of something to declare his feelings and impress her. And he took a delicate poppy petal, pressed it until it became a perfect translucent means on which he wrote her a tiny, heartfelt love declaration and wrapped it so it looked as glamorous and well, a bit shabby chic, as it could be. He was counting on her being the artsy type as well and appreciating his very thought through gesture. When he finally got bold enough to give it to her, let’s just say her reaction was not what he expected. She just looked at it and asked “what’s this onion peel for?” Needless to say it didn’t work out.
Remembering this I was wondering how many times do we go into something relatively new and give it our all and it backfires? I know that the cautious would advice dipping in one toe at the time, and maybe behaviourally we try to… but what happens with that spot in our heart where the expectations are big and growing bigger as we get more and more involved, as we give more and more of our selves in any way, shape or form? Maybe we want to reap and then we will put in more and more and more even when we think we have nothing left to give… Maybe seeing the discrepancy between the expectancy and the results (at least given in that moment) we decide to just turn around, leave the once desired outcome and never look back.
Still, what if we decide to stay there with our expectation and get to know it better and ask it and ourselves questions while we wait it to yield its so anticipated fruit considering that it’s been watered and dug around and cared for? Maybe sticking with our expectations, maybe not even doing anything, but taking a rest and thinking about them. Maybe the difference in the impact our expectations have on us could come not from the results, but from just reflecting on them and learning their roots, their power, the other times when they showed their head just like now and what happened then and what we want to keep from those experiences when the results were exactly as we expected or the exact opposite and how did that all feel…
This is the place where I am now, writing my first blog post, I am reflecting on my expectations… I guess my expectation is that my blog would be a place where I (re)learn to navigate through this (professional) life stage and express joy about it. Also, I expect it will be a platform where, confidentially and tactfully, I could tell stories about stories that are a product of interacting histories, because the premise of my life and work is that we live in context and that’s were the richness of our experience is thickened, rather than it being a one man show that burdens and exhausts that one man or woman or being, however they identify themselves. And as a blog author (scary thought!!!) that makes my role easier, because I become like the collector of folk ballads, rather than a maker and breaker of my characters’ and/or my own “literary” destiny.
I expect my voice will also be present because I know I have an important voice, nevertheless I expect not to be the focal point, but rather the witness, the co-pilot that describes some of the landscape and why not? the cheerleader that rejoices in acknowledging the value and beauty in the tapestry of what surrounds me.
So here we go… may words, concepts, ideas and beliefs transport us towards our most desired outcomes and may we learn to see the distance we cover just by being present without expectations and ourselves as a whole, even when it seems like no progress is made…
