EXPECTATIONS
Me (to the stranger standing next to me at the breakfast buffet): “So how’s your day going?”
His reply: “It’s going fine. But then, I set a fairly low bar.”
This seemingly innocuous comment made by a fellow hotel guest has nonetheless had quite a lasting effect. It often comes to mind when I find myself stewing about an outcome that didn’t quite go as desired. When that happens, I am compelled to ask myself why I think the events of daily life must conform to my particular “bar” in order for me to be satisfied, or happy? Upon reflection, it occurs to me that learning to manage expectations is one of the more daunting “growth tasks” one encounters when aspiring to lead an examined life.
So much of my conditioning, and indeed what I continue to see in magazines, films and on social media, biases me against accepting the harsher aspects of reality, the things that don’t fit my script. It also goes against what Michael Singer says about happiness:
“The real question is whether you want to be happy regardless of what happens. The purpose of your life is to enjoy and learn from your experiences. You were not put on Earth to suffer. You’re not helping anybody by being miserable. Regardless of your philosophical beliefs, the fact remains that you were born and you are going to die. During the time in between, you get to choose whether or not you want to enjoy the experience. Events don’t determine whether or not you’re going to be happy. They’re just events. You determine whether or not you’re going to be happy. You can be happy just to be alive. You can be happy having all these things happen to you, and then be happy to die. If you can live this way, your heart will be so open and your Spirit will be so free, that you will soar up to the heavens.”
Singer claims that making the decision to stay happy, to stay open and embrace all of life’s experiences — good, bad or indifferent — with an open heart, is actually a very high spiritual calling. So, ever the sceptic, I’ve been experimenting with that calling. I’ve been learning to more easily let go of my personal opinions and subjective ideas of how things could, should, or ought to be, and instead let others’ suggestions or preferences take priority. (Or at least listen to them for five minutes.) In the short time that I’ve been practicing this new habit, the results have been surprisingly gratifying.
An example might be choosing to relinquish my role of hosting Thanksgiving weekend at our cabin in Whistler. This is a tradition we have observed since building what was meant to be our primary residence in 1993. (Our then teenaged children rebelled and we instead rented in the city for the next couple of decades!)
The decision taken to spend the holiday in the city confronted me with the changing dynamics of our growing-up family. Being ever the mother hen, (or mama bear, depending on the “threat”) I like nothing better that having our various and assorted family members breaking bread together. There were so many reasons why this year had to be different. Not least of which was the fact that there were to be twenty-four of us in number. Gone are the days of stacking kids in every available nook and cranny. Some of the grandkids are now tweenies or teens, and all of them value their privacy!
An additional wrinkle to celebrating at the cabin was the recovery time I needed for my hip to heal. This ruled out climbing the multiple steps it would take just to get to said cabin, along with whatever hiking, biking (or dancing, you never know..) I might have wanted to do while up there. It also ruled out standing in the kitchen all day, orchestrating dinner for two dozen loved ones.
As you’ve read in a previous blog, the inactivity imposed for my hip recovery was highly frustrating. Not just because I missed my fitness routines, but also, I realized in retrospect, because I suffered from a lack of control. Simply put, my expectation of how Thanksgiving should be did not conform to the reality. The only way I was going to enjoy the holiday — versus pining for the past — was to embrace and make the best of the new situation. With an open heart and mind. This I did, with more ease and equanimity that I thought possible for a control freak like me. In the end, my daughter took on the cast of thousands on the Friday, and I was able to produce “Thanksgiving Lite”, on Sunday, when half of our number went elsewhere.
It wasn’t quite Singer’s “soaring up to the heavens”, but for each cherished belief that I was able to relinquish, there was an equal degree of freedom from stale-dated, “just because” routines that no longer served everybody. It ushered in a renewed sense of collaboration that took into account the various agendas of our (mildly outspoken) family members.
And I didn’t even have to lower the bar!