Expectation V Reality

Let's talk about self image. Self image obviously means something different to different people, and perhaps that seems a bit silly to point out, but it's true. One of the things that my family consistently brings up is that I should try harder to understand that not everyone views the world like I do. And I do. I really truly do. And I am a deeply empathetic person, to the point where I feel like an emotional sponge. I just soak up the excess of other people's hurt, maybe it's because I want them to know that I'm there for them, or maybe it's because I don't want them to think that I'm being insensitive to what they're going through, or maybe it's just because that's just the way I am. I don't know. I just know that I continually put more on my plate than I can handle.

My mum, who is a deeply wonderful person, is also an unapologetic perfectionist. And, growing up with that wasn't always easy. But please don't misunderstand, my mum is not a cold person. I didn't grow up in a house where I was expected to get straight A's or where she expected me to get into Cambridge and would have disowned me if I didn't do everything the way she wanted me to do it. But I also didn't live in a totally lax house. She never actively checked that I'd done my homework, and I think that was because she just trusted that I would do it because I wasn't the kind of person that would slack off on that. Pretty much my whole life, I always believed that I wasn't a perfectionist because, truthfully, I always believed that I was too lazy to be a perfectionist. I believed that I was procrastinated too much to be a perfectionist. It wasn't until I was in therapy a couple of years ago and my therapist told me that all of the things I was describing sounded like I was very much a perfectionist. And that just about blew my damn mind. It felt like everything I knew, or thought I knew wasn't actually true. Maybe it seems like a very nothing-y thing to be surprised about, but you have to understand, my whole life I felt like I was never working hard enough. So to find out that perhaps my lack of desire to start new things because I was afraid of failing was a sign of perfectionism. That my desire to keep working at things until I felt like that it was of a good enough standard is a sign of perfectionism. And ever since then, I've proudly waved being a perfectionist. Since then I've realised that being a perfectionist is not something I should be ashamed of. Perfectionism does mean that I do things more slowly, but it also means that what I do is something that I'm more likely to be proud of. And that isn't to say that people who aren't perfectionists are somehow less, or are less likely to work hard at things. It just means that I now better understand my work ethic, and why it consistently feels like I'm not doing enough. That every moment I spend resting, I'm wasting it. That is now a moment that I have not taken seriously enough. That is now a moment that is gone, lost, and I will never ever get it back-and how could I have let it pass me by like that? Only an idiot would allow that to happen.

This is where we can start to talk about expectations. The harshest critics in our lives are ourselves. And yes, friends and family can expect a lot of us, and can often make us feel like us being ourselves or what we're doing, or how we're doing it is somehow inadequate. This isn't a scapegoat for people who are just genuinely a bad influence on us. But, in my moments of self reflection, something that I've realised is that other people do not pay much attention to your life and what you do. In a way this could be liberating, and I spoke about this briefly in my post about fictional growth so I won't go into too much detail again, but it is something that could just as easily be terrifying. Our lives are fully in our control. We have the power to do whatever we want. And, that's scary. It's scary that if it feels like life is passing us by it's probably because we might be letting it. Being aware of every passing moment as a moment that will never be replicated again for the rest of time is enough to make your head spin. Of course, perhaps this is just wistful thinking. You often hear people say that if you're unhappy with something in your life you should just fix it. Often, what these happy-go-lucky types tend to miss is that it really isn't that simple. Our society is not designed for us to simply up and change things whenever we feel like it. And perhaps I'm using society too much as a scapegoat, but, and forgive my bluntness, only someone with no eyes would look at modern day life and think that there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. Modern day life is crippling. And society, employers, companies, just keep pushing us harder. When people tell you to simply fix whatever problems you might have in your life, they don't actually have any solutions for you. They just want to give their unsolicited opinion. An English teacher once said that people shouldn't complain about things if they couldn't offer a solution. At the time, I thought this was a ridiculous notion. Why shouldn't people be allowed to complain? Life was hard enough as it was without us being allowed to blow off some steam. And I find myself still thinking about what she said. In a way, now that I'm older, I somewhat understand what she meant. Some people might wallow in negativity, and just complain for the sake of it. In that sense, then maybe yes, they shouldn't complain if the solution to their problems are just in front of them. The other thing that I've learned, is that people are afraid of change. We're all privy to it. What I suspect is the reasoning for these people not helping themselves is because they're worried about what will happen if they change the thing that's not making them happy.

I think about this a lot. In Bojack Horseman (if you don't watch the show, then honestly, what are you even doing? Go and watch it right now), Bojack talks about how he's scared of doing a movie for Secreteriat because it's been his lifelong dream to portray him on stage, and if that dream happens, then what? That would have been everything that he was ever striving for. And I think about that a lot, because I can relate. There are things that I've dreamed of my entire life, like getting published, but I wonder sometimes, if that happens, what then? Sometimes you have these dreams that have been a part of you for so long, that they don't really feel like dreams. They feel like an integral part of who you are. If you achieve them, or give up on them, then you will no longer be you. Maybe that feels dramatic, but that's what it feels like. We often look at life in milestones. And those milestones, we put far too much pressure and expectation on them. If they don't live up to the perfect picture we have in our heads then clearly we did something wrong. If achieving our goals doesn't feel as sweet, as relieving as it should have been, then what went wrong? Why aren't we happy reaching that milestone? It's a state of constant distress, because we're constantly looking for the next big milestone. The next big promotion at work, the next huge firecracker moment in a relationship, the next something. Life is built up of somethings. But life is also much more than those milestones, because sometimes, when we reach them, they're not everything that we want them to be and that can make them feel deeply bittersweet. We shouldn't put so much expectation on those milestones, those huge goals and achievements. Something that I've learned to do is to look at life on a daily basis. Progress towards meeting our dreams often feels like we're making no progress at all, and it isn't until we're closer to that goal that we can actually realise that we've made progress. There is joy in the little things in life. There is joy in smelling the rain, curling up with a good book, or just catching up with a friend. Those are all milestones too. Finally reading that book you've meaning to read for years? That's a milestone, and you deserve to enjoy that book. What I'm trying to say (and I don't think I'm saying very eloquently) is that the big milestones don't really exist. I mean, they do, but they will never feel the way you want them to. We believe that they'll feel like fireworks because Hollywood has perpetuated the notion so that they can sell more. There is nothing wrong with being disappointed in things. Too often we feel like a certain day has to be perfect, or that things have to go without a hitch. And when things inevitably go wrong, we're quick to get our pointing finger ready. Who ruined this for us? The answer to that question is usually that we did, by expecting too much. Life is just life. Sometimes things feel incredible, but often they're just mediocre. And sometimes, things categorically, unequivocally suck. And we have to savour life that way. We can't keep only looking for the good things because that's not the way it always will be, and we learn through hardship.

I remember before I went to university, everyone told me that it would be the best three years of my life, and I would make friends for life. And they weren't wrong. I had some great times with my friends, from drinking endless cups of tea to watching painfully cringe movies, and to playing Cards Against Humanity. However, that wasn't all university was, and often it's far too romanticised. When I was in my first year, I was catching up on Game of Thrones, and every night that I would sit with a tub of Ben and Jerry and watch it in the dim student room, I would feel like I was wasting this precious once in a lifetime experience. I felt like I should have been bonding with my housemates, I should have been out, exploring, drinking in everything that the town had to offer. And I think I felt like that because people had told me that I needed to. People had made me feel like university was one fun experience after another, and clearly because I was having nights alone, I was doing something wrong. I was squandering this part of my life. But there's a light and a dark side to it. University was also exceedingly stressful, with lecturers' leaving, quitting and having long mysterious illnesses. My mental health was the best it had been for a very long time, but it was also the worst it had been. And often, when we're out of a situation, we put on our rose tinted glasses and we only remember the good times. It's important to view things the way that they truly are. Not just all great or all bad, but with shades in between.

I think what I'm trying to say here is that everyone would have us believe that all of the large milestones that we'll face have to feel big, magical, heart stopping, and if they don't; well, it's your fault. Clearly you weren't excited enough, clearly you don't appreciate life enough. We are allowed to feel disappointed in things. We're allowed to be disappointed because often, things don't go to plan. People let us down, things fall through, and what we thought would be a moment to remember ends up going onto the garbage pile of ideas that we might get back to. In fact, I think we should feel disappointed in things. We should feel disappointed and let down when events and times don't live up to what we thought they would be. Because then we know that we can make them better. And it's true that we will never experience things twice and that moments should be treasured. But I think here's where the problem lies. We cannot treasure every single moment. It just isn't realistic. Whether it's because we don't want them to end, because wonderful moments feel like you're in a dream, and real life is breathing down your neck. My mum once told me that we're responsible for making our own fun, and at the time, I thought that she didn't know what she was talking about. But, as is the case with most of these things, she was absolutely right. Let me tell you a story. When I was finishing up my A-Levels, my school organised a leavers prom, and I wanted to go because I thought I was supposed to. My friend, one of my closest friends didn't. I eventually talked her into it, and we went. I had an absolutely miserable time. I spent most of the night hunting down my friend and cheering her up because she was very upset at the thought of our time together coming at an end, and she felt excluded and left out. Had I known back then that I was the master of my own happiness, I like to think I would have acted differently. But I don't know if I would have done. And I don't think I would have wanted to.

Life goes wrong, of course it does. And what I think is that the moment we accept is the moment that we accept life for what it truly is. A messy, complicated, dumb, incomprehensible mess. But that's what makes it beautiful. Its unpredictability is what makes it interesting. The moment we drop our expectations is when we can start to make the most of it. And it's scary to admit that we might not be in control, but we don't always have to. Life is like a lazy river, sometimes all we have to do is just ride the current and see where it takes us. That isn't to say that terrible, awful things happen every day, because they do, and we can see proof of that every single time we put on the news and whilst individually we might not be able to make the biggest difference, we can make the world just that little bit brighter for everyone else in our lives.

But I think if you take anything out of this is to keep a firm eye on what we think should happen, and what we think we should feel versus what will actually happen and what we'll actually feel. And it's good to have expectations of things, they help us keep realistic, and sometimes they help to keep us grounded, but sometimes it's easy to allow our imaginations to run away with us. Pretty much everything in life should be taken with a grain of salt. And, sometimes, it's okay to admit that things just sucked. There's no shame in that, and sometimes we need to revel in a little negativity. Social media is obviously a huge influencer of this, all we ever see are the things that people want us to see. They carefully construct and hand pick moments that they want the rest of the world to see, because we aren't allowed to see that they're struggling. The other night, I got curious about what people that I used to be acquaintances with at school were getting up to, and that was a mistake. It was a mistake because clearly their social media pages were plastered with success and great trips and memories. It made me feel like I wasn't trying hard enough to achieve my dreams. That, once again, I'm just letting life pass me by. And when I told my boyfriend this, he pretty much reiterated all of this and that made me feel much better. Social media is not real life, no matter how much Facebook might try and convince you otherwise. Perhaps if we spent less time trying to compete with each other and trying to tear each other down, we could have an honest discussion about life and our individual experiences. Whilst we're all different, the one thing we're experiencing together is life and it just seems a bit confusing that we aren't going through it together.

When we remind each other that things didn't go the way we wanted them to, that's when we can enjoy ourselves. That's when we can all sit down and laugh about the way that things went wrong. We can't do that if we're trying to beat each other to a paradise that doesn't exist. The first thing to do is to be honest with ourselves, about what we want out of life and what we think we will get. Each day we need to get up and question what we'll get out of every single day, and whilst that will require a lot of self reflection, I believe that self reflection is a necessity, because if we thought about our own actions a little more then maybe the world we live in could be very different to the one we currently have.