Tag: expectations

Listen Up

I like the piece below because it is sensible and realistic. Platitudes abound in society and they can be useful. For a minute or two.

But there are a few widely shared platitudes in life that are a little TOO optimistic. They prevent us from internalizing and accepting how life really is for us at any given age and stage.

There are platitudes that prevent us from taking full responsibility for our lives whatever situation we find ourselves in. Not doing do can open us up to crushing disappointment and regret. It is all up to us.

This is a helpful guide (I found) for adding perspective to those helpful comments people make that aren’t quite as easy to attain as they sound. Accept the reality of these prescriptions and you have a better than average chance of making it to the end of your life with your eyes wide open.

That is, having lived a real life based on the real opportunities and people you have had come into it and those you built your life around.

Only then do you really have a better than average chance of dying in peace and acceptance with minimal regrets. When you have only yourself to blame or thank for its outcome.

The older you get the more you realize that a lot of things you were taught in your youth are just plain wrong.

  1. You can be anything you want to be. No, no you can’t. There are tests you won’t score high enough on that will prevent you from being accepted into whatever program you desire. All this despite having the intelligence and skill needed to excel at whatever the profession may be. Even if you have the right credentials and experience, if they are not hiring for what you want to do…well…you may be out of luck. There are miles of reasons why you can’t be whatever you want to be.
    • But guess what? You can be the best at the opportunities life does present to you.
  2. Hard work is rewarded. No, not always. Sometimes the power of the universe conspires against hard working individuals and unfairly rewards our lazy, short cut seeking, less intelligent friends, co-workers, and acquaintances.
    • But if you knuckle down, and don’t let the unfairness of the world ruin your attitude, show up everyday, and do your best, then because of your hard work, you definitely increase the odds of having a fulfilling life.
  3. Money and wealth are your greatest asset. No, no they are not. They are important and provide security and freedom.
    • Your health is your greatest asset. If you have terminal cancer or some other horrible condition, all the money in the world does not matter. In fact, if you get type 2 diabetes or heart disease, what you can do is radically impacted. So invest in your health daily.
  4. That others care about your house, your clothes, your toys, and you in general. No, no they do not. We all think others are concerned with what we have or don’t have. They’re not. In fact the people we think are thinking about us, usually are not thinking about us at all. The world doesn’t really care about you.
    • But, if you are lucky, you have a few people who do truly care about you. It’s usually a very small number of people. They are the people that truly matter in your life and they probably could care less about all your toys.
  5. That we will all live forever. No, no you won’t. Sure, no one ever comes out and blatantly tells you that you will live forever. But every message we get on TV, social media, or culture in general seems to want us to believe we are immortal. Worse yet, our own minds seem to lead us around as if we are going to see the next two centuries.
    • But, you are going to die. Everyone you know is going to die. That should not scare us. It should free us. Free us to be present in every moment because this moment is all we really have. The past is gone. The future is not guaranteed. We have today. Embrace it and allow it to grow the love you have inside you. Then share that love.

Don’t Blame Me

Love is energy. That energy circulates and moves through all living things and us humans, in the constant rhythm of our breaths and our heartbeats. Pretty reliable markers over the course of a lifetime. When we are children, we are taught we need to plant the “right” seeds, then stand up as adults, work hard, and watch our lives grow. Of course, everyone gets different seed packets: in the guise of different genders, talents, geographic locations, physical gifts, inherited experience, race, aptitudes, innate knowledge, and the circumstances of our births. We’re human and malleable, especially when we are children. We need to belong and be loved so we listen to who our families tell us we are. Many families have very definite ideas about your “ideal” life path though it may be radically different from your own inner desires and direction. We all know lawyers who wanted to open a bar or be commercial airline pilots. Doctors who really wanted to be farmers and company CEOs who might have been stay-at-home mothers had that been an acceptable option. We all make decisions based on what we know and what we learn along life’s path. In my family, my mother was convinced I should become an influential and powerful public figure. My Dad – by contrast – thought that I would be better off as a wife and mother and that pursuing a university degree was a waste of time and money. I completely let him down by earning three. You can only grow from the level you are at any given time of your life. Babies, for example, are not expected to understand mathematics or physics. That anyone can at any age, of course, is an utter mystery to me. “Adulthood”  arrives at the moment you start listening to your own heart’s desires and begin moving your life in a direction of your own making. Countless numbers of people are willing to cash in on our innate insecurities. It can be a moment of crisis when we wake up and start to shake off the labels and expectations that have been placed on us throughout our lives.  Because each one of us is utterly unique, there is no “one size fits all.” When we decide to seek meaning and direction in our own lives “our way,” we have to carve out our own path. I tire easily of the fashion and cosmetic industries that assure us women that our self-worth and belonging is guaranteed “if only” we buy their products (and give them a five-star rating on Yelp!) I am tired of so-called experts who try to sell me their version of “the way, the truth, and the life.” This approach can only make sense in a capitalist society that has lost a deep sense of community and lauds individual achievement over the collective power of joining our gifts and talents to work together. So making that often jerky turn toward adulthood often comes down to self-determination and a lot of courage. When people can no longer abide the internal disconnect between who they really are, lives can change radically. Marriages collapse. Businesses fail. Abused children turn their backs on the parents who had ground them down from birth. Adulthood is taking personal responsibility. Responsibility for everything that happens to us, what we do, and the choices we made regardless of how badly misguided or uninformed we were. That means blame is out of the question. There may, indeed, have been negative incidents and forces that shaped you. Blame won’t fix it. It will only perpetuate it and stultify the process of making your own life better. Our focus must turn from trying to find someone or something to “fix us” and stepping up to “fix ourselves.” The answers are already deep inside. We need to encourage that small, still voice and learn to listen to it. We need to consciously train our energy on the good things in our lives and work to eliminate what is bad or “doesn’t serve us.” Such has been my relationship with words. External voices and expectations drowned the seeds of my creativity. They were much more comfortable ingesting the pablum I wrote for money. My energies were focused for far too long on keeping a lid on and suppressing me and my voice. The one I knew I had to develop. Not anymore. Who’s with me?