Expectations

Do you remember what you were doing five years ago on this day?  Or even one year ago?  If you're like me, not only do you not remember, you also do not care to remember.  When I do think of the past, which is often, I am haunted by the mistakes I have made, the lost opportunities, and the people I have let down - especially myself.  Reflecting on the past is a paradoxical exercise: it increases the probability that we will avoid making the same mistakes again, but it also reawakens the same insecurities which likely caused us to err.  Hindsight may be 20/20, but it does not come with rose-colored lenses.

My life is not what I want it to be, but why?  I am employed, I have a kind and supportive family, and I have a few good friends whom I see occasionally.  I have a college degree and am renting a small house in a nice area.  I live in a country where I don't have to worry about constant war and terrorism.  I have access to clean water and enough to eat.  I am alive.  I am near the top of the survival pyramid, so why do I often feel like I'm on the bottom?  The answer is expectations.  This is not the life I expected to have, and so I am filled with a kind of chronic disappointment that prevents me from being grateful for my present situation.  You'll notice I said "expected" instead of "expect"; expectations inherently dwell in the past.  As the present unfolds, expectations succumb to reality and become part of an irretrievable discourse.  Of course, in our human folly, we often attempt to retrieve it anyway. 

Example: I did well in college.  I graduated summa cum laude with a BA in English and expected that I would go on to do significant work in the field of literary theory.  As it turns out, there isn't a great demand for literary theorists and critics (shocking, I know), and even if there were, the attainment of such a position would require more schooling and a level of understanding I may never, even with said schooling, possess.  These realizations would be less painful if I had not spent all my time and energy working toward this goal for three years.  My dedication to schoolwork cost me lasting relationships, exploration of other interests, and, in all honesty, my mental health.  I was lonely, self-righteous, and out of touch with reality.  It was the lowest point in my life.  So why, when I think about this time, do I feel worse about where I am now than about where I was then?  Because the expectation is still there; I cannot let it go.  I feel worse because I know I should feel better.  I am overcome with self-doubt.  I am not ready to learn from the mistakes because what if they weren't mistakes?  What if my soul-numbing dedication to literary criticism was really what it takes to be the next Roland Barthes (look him up, he's incredible) or Michel Foucault?  I don't know.  All I know is that I can't learn from this experience until I stop wishing, completely stop wishing, that I was reliving it.  I have got to stop wishing.

Enough about me.  What I want to say is that we cannot escape our pasts, but we can make an effort to keep them from ruining our presents.  We can do this by keeping expectations where they belong - in a time and place that used to be but no longer is.  Please know that I am not advocating giving up on your dream - how could I when I haven't truly done so myself? - rather, I am advocating living a healthy and loving life that you won't regret in the future.  For many people, such a life is the dream.