Are You Expecting?

There is only one reason why I am writing this post. Because I said I would. In my post earlier today about my recent hack attack, I told you to swing by here for another post. This is it. A second post in one day. As if blogging once a day, every single day since April 10 was not enough, I had to up the ante. I had to raise my own expectations. And yours.

And so I am here, at the mercy of frenzied fingers, racing the clock. (We have a Preschool Holiday Concert within the hour.) Here I am. Keeping my word to you. And to myself. Trying to live up to expectations I've set for myself. And now I write this and wonder about expectations. Whether they are good for us. Whether they are something that we truly control. Or whether, to some degree, they control us? Are we curtailing our own freedom by fashioning expectations that are too much and too many? Are expectations existential cuffs?

And now I am perplexed. Is it better to manage our expectations, to keep them reasonable, to set that proverbial bar a bit lower? Or is it better to aim high, to set those expectations - for ourselves and others - as high as the sky, to dream big and boldly, and just learn to forgive ourselves when we don't meet them?

I don't know. I don't pretend to know. Samuel Johnson said, “We love to expect, and when expectation is either disappointed or gratified, we want to be again expecting.” Maybe there is a resident joy in the mere act and art of expecting? Maybe this is what life is about - the setting of lofty goals, the spinning of tiny wheels, the wanting of more and more and more?

Post written. Post published. Expectation met. This time at least.

___________________________________

Do you expect too much of yourself and others? If so, would you change this if you could? Or do you think there is a virtue in aiming high even if this entails periodic disappointment?