Great Expectations

The following is a clip from the movie (500) Days of Summer. Tom Hansen, like the majority of the rest of us, is, regrettably, suffering from an awful bout with an illness known as lofty expectations. He has the whole evening painted vividly - and perfectly - in his mind when he arrives at the party. Summer Finn will be all his, and his life will once again be pristine and picturesque. Or so he thinks. But nothing can live up to these wonderful suppositions. And Tom Hansen gets left in the dust, caught somewhere in between expectations and reality and hating every minute of it. Oh! How terrible it is to face the truth that in a duel between expectations and reality, reality will forever be a shoo-in, the insurmountable champion.

In the past few months, I have realized that I am an expecter; I'm like Tom. I like to think of all these magical scenarios in my head, scenarios that I myself know are far-fetched and borderline totally impossible in the first place. And then I get upset when the day or the event rolls around and nothing goes according to my perfect little plan. And then it kind of sucks, and I say to myself, "Oh goodness! I'll never let that happen again. What on earth was I thinking? From now on, I'm going to be a hardcore realist." But frankly, who I am trying to fool here? We all know that will never happen. Another day goes by, and I am forever stuck in my rut of monotonous, glorious expectations.

Now, for awhile, I have been trying to convince myself that the only cure to such an epidemic was to stop it once and for all, to say so long to great expectations and recognize that I should expect nothing at most and then be pleasantly surprised should something a tad better than nothing occur. It sounds logical, I suppose. But not practical. I'm not saying that we should have our sights set on a life lived purely and unabashedly in the clouds with no sense of reality whatsoever. I mean, if that floats your boat, then more power to you, sailor. But what I am saying is that we don't need to put an end to the expectations. If we are dead set on expecting nothing and going into every situation with a bleak mindset, then I can guarantee that our expectations - or lack there of - will be right on point. It will be horridly miserable at best. And who wants that?

Sometimes, a pinch or a dash of expectation is quite necessary, quite enthralling. So it may not always go your way, but who's to say that you can't learn to be content with whatever the circumstance?

Why! What a beautiful day it will be when we can utter in sheer confidence, "This wasn't exactly how I had envisioned it, but man, I am lovin' on this anyway."