Expectations

Everyone has high expectations of us, when really, we’re the ones who have the highest expectations out of ourselves. We battle underlying feelings of fear, doubt, and uncertainty with grit and optimism, yet we’re driven precisely because those things exist.

In turn, recognizing this is an opportunity. It tells us that the very things that daunt us are there because we yearn for something different, and the only way to tip the scale in our favor is to act accordingly.

We have to accept we’ll never make the right decisions all the time. Instead, we have to live with what we choose, and have faith that they will pan out someway somehow. And if they don’t, it means something else out there is waiting for us.

My point is this: Whatever we expect from the universe is only in direct proportion to what we give to it. When we do the work, when we exert our very best efforts, when we sacrifice, we expect our efforts to be returned. Because our brains operate on the principle of fairness. On cause and effect. On give and take. However, the harsh truth is that the universe won’t always be fair. It plays by a different set of rules that err on the side of chaos and entropy.

One way to navigate it is through perspective. To aim for the goal, but to find the journey in itself as the reward. That it’s not just about what we hope to achieve, but about who we are becoming in the process. And that’s something you could expect with a guarantee: that when you strive for something and you do what you believe is necessary to get to where you want to go, day by day you are morphing into something else. You may not see it in the drudgery of the everyday. But you are evolving.

And one day you’ll realize, you’re not the same person as you were. Your destination may have had a part in that, but it was the path you took to get there and what it was you did along the way.

That’s as much as we can truly expect.