BLIND WOMAN WALKING
Here I sit again, reflecting back on a lunch conversation with a business prospect today. I can’t say it enough: I love people. Really. Well, most people anyway. I especially value good conversation and people with depth and a soul. When we’re lucky, we get to have time with people like this. I love being aware to these things now.
We were talking today about how some people are geared to believe and offer the best of themselves to everyone they meet, with the hopes that we, too, will be rewarded in reciprocity. Some people just naturally care about others while some only care about themselves. It’s not a blame or fault on the human race – our experiences harbor this behavior really. A little thing we call “learned behavior.” Some people are always right, regardless of viable opinions others may present. It’s not their fault they were raised by a parent who always led a household this way. Some people say and sell you on all things unicorns and rainbows (and sometimes we are naïve enough to believe them). It’s not anyone’s fault this happens because in life there are the “how stuff happens” people and the “let’s make that happen” people. Some people are so preoccupied with personal gain they will destroy everyone in their path to get to the end goal. (There’s no good explanation for these people; they are just assholes). Some people are always victims, never able to take ownership of their mistakes or bad behaviors and how they may have affected others. And some people just exist…it’s hard to understand these kinds of people anyway.
In the spirit of being positive, however, there are some people who do possess those rewarding and redeeming behaviors in life and you are forever touched by them. These are the kind of people with whom I seek to surround myself.
However, I digress.
My lunch guest today has recently gone through a major transition in their professional life - and let’s just say a narcissistic asshole left them with tasks larger than a Chuck Norris conquest. It left me thinking about how, in life, we often walk blindly into many things with the hope that by being the best versions of ourselves we can be in that moment we will be rewarded with favorable outcomes. But most of the time, like the Rolling Stones song says: we can’t always get what we want. So if we don’t always get what we want, how do we continue to walk blindly into life situations and experiences in preparation for failure? We don’t most of the time. And we shouldn’t. I have come to believe that the reason we feel failed in life or by our experiences is because we don’t properly manage our own expectations.
I came across an old journal entry from 2003 where I was reflecting forward on my upcoming wedding day. I knew then that getting married at 23 was a bad idea. I was so cognizant it was a bad idea that I had written on it before it ever took place. (Another one of life’s “THERE’S YOUR SIGN” moments). I realized in reading it that we spend a lot of our time on earth working through mismanaged expectations. Maybe someone tells you that you are the best thing to ever happen to them – and you begin crafting a romance novel life out of that statement. Four months later you find yourself angered and surprised when you find out you were only a phase that happened to them. Maybe your manager tells you that you are the best employee they have ever had – and you work late nights and at home on the weekends making sure you stay at the top of the hill. Six months later your job role is eliminated and the person who was hired one month before you gets to keep the coveted role you worked your ass off to get.
Sometimes we see too much promise and glamour in the life we’ve designed in our head that we fail to recognize what’s actually in front of us…and most of the time it’s not so full of promise or glamour: it just is.
I talk to many people in a given week and this sentiment is usually present in almost all of life’s scenarios: we fail to manage our own expectations because we want to see the best versions of ourselves in others. Humans are flawed, as I mentioned earlier. People are not all wired the same. This is what makes the world a sweet, loving, terrible, and horrible and ‘life worth living’ place. We don’t all communicate the same ways, however, if we are aware enough and willing to let go of our own expectations of others we wouldn’t be so disappointed after all.
I’m really trying hard to practice this now for myself. In most areas of my life it seems to have helped. I quit expecting so much in my professional life – I just get up and do a job I love and hope that my efforts fulfill me enough that I’m successful. I’ve quit expecting myself to be Supermom – my son smiles and giggles every day and is growing and learning new things every day. I stopped feeling like a failure when I’m too tired to cook dinner so we eat McDonald’s. I quit blaming myself for not doing 500 activities in a two-day weekend, but instead let my son watch TV for an hour while I doze in and out of sleep on the couch. I don’t show up to my son’s school with the monogrammed Easter basket for the Easter egg hunt. I don’t blame myself when my son eats a booger or does weird shit I can’t explain. I drink the whole bottle of wine sometimes because I can. I no longer apologize for not returning a text or answering the phone because I don’t want to talk. Sometimes, I just don’t want to talk. Or maybe I’m busy doing single mom shit around the house. Or maybe I just wanted to go to bed at 7:30 p.m. Or maybe (just maybe!) I’ve quit expecting myself to be something I’m not capable of being that day.
Now that I’m beginning to practice the art of nothingness in everything, I’m finding fulfillment in more things. I’m comfortable walking blindly into things now without panicking. I don’t worry when I don’t get a reply to an e-mail/returned phone call/ignored text/no comments on my Facebook posts. I don’t mind who I am and where I’m headed now. It’s pretty liberating and I wish everyone would try it. After all these years of listening to my dad tell me that the best company is yourself, I finally understand what that means.
So I’ll keep walking with my eyes closed and mind open…it is much better this way.
-BWT
“The only real failure in life is not to be true to the best one knows.”