Great expectations

Today was not a good day. After missing most of my lab, and napping when I should have been on campus later for a meeting, I passionately told my friend that “I wouldn’t cut the horse off a tail” and then discovered that the internet wasn’t working. “Argh” is the best word to represent how I feel at the moment. As an extrovert, I like to talk about everything that goes on in my head, but alas I do not have time so instead of having a full-blown rant, I guess I could get over myself and write an interesting blog post.

I think we’ve all heard nice sayings like “learn from your mistakes” or “two steps forward, one step back” or “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger” or (my favourite) “shit happens”. And yet, as clever and concise as these sayings are, it still doesn’t make up for the fact that when things don’t go according to plan, it just sucks. I still think that the ideas put forward are very valid. I mean, shit does happen and if you can endure and get through you will be stronger, even if it means the way out isn’t linear and you make mistakes along the way (see what I did there? It’s called paraphrasing). But accepting this is just really hard, especially when success is valued so highly. And because failure is the opposite of success it is to be avoided at all costs. (I almost said “in western countries” but I think this could actually be true of most of the societies around the world).

Like all difficult concepts that I struggle with, there seems to be a balance of risk-taking and playing it safe. It’s all relative, said Einstein, and I think he had a point. Accidental spoonerisms in a friendly situation are really funny, but not when you get “fancy duck” mixed up in front of someone important… But the more I think about this, the more I realise how complex the idea of accepting failure is. You've gotta be in to win, but am I putting too much value on the outcome so that it is costing me? Or am I too scared to take a risk because it seems too hard and there would be no immediate satisfaction?

The easiest way to figure this out is to look at our expectations, and how we react when these expectations aren't met. What do you expect of yourself and the world around you? I expected the internet to be working, but, quite simply, it wasn’t. I had the right to expect that when I opened my browser the internet would be working but how did I react? Did I have a tantrum or write a blog post? (Well I did both really). How about something more important to me: if I expected myself to study all the time, I would let myself down constantly. I’ve had this expectation dangling over my head for a very long time and I have had to battle with the idea that study is not the be all and end all. Often I get to the end of a day, and see that I haven't done as much as I wanted. It's quite disappointing and usually my motivation disappears. While I can't be lazy, I've had to realise that the amount of study I do still works for me, even though my initial expectations weren't being met. With this new perspective, I can set out to see how I study best and change my view of my work habits.

What about things that are more out of our control? The bus being late, or tripping over on the way to class, or forgetting to do something, or the internet not working (!), or even letting someone down without realising it. It kinda makes me sad to realise that we (i.e. humans) are obsessed with the only thing that we'll never achieve: perfection. And I can't ignore the spiritual ramifications of this. The way my mum puts it, is that we live in a broken world. It is far from perfect and everyone knows it. Even closer to home is that when you look at youself from your own point of view, you aren't perfect either. But here is where perspective comes in handy. God made us in his very own image (genesis 1:26) and when he looked at everything he made (including you!!) he saw that all of it was good (genesis 1:31). It goes downhill pretty quickly from there when Adam and Eve start to think that they might just ignore what God has told them. But they are still in God's image. They are still created to be perfect, but by God's doing not their own. God sees us as perfect regardless, and we still expect God to turn around and say "just kidding, you have to earn your salvation". Nothing could be further from the truth.

So maybe ask yourself what kinds of things you expect to do, and how you react when you fail to meet these. If you're falling short of a goal, is it really your fault or have you set the standard too high? And what about how you see others. Do you expect them to be a certain way? Do you judge them when they can't live up to your expectations of them? And finally, how do you see yourself and the world? Have you got your God-lenses on? Happy mistake-making :)

 

Spoonerism in all it's might