expecting nothing

I have very few expectations out of life. Well, out of general life anyway. I used to have these pie-in-the-sky yearnings that were never going to come true, that were destined to disappoint me, but I dreamed anyway. I remember everyone telling me the sky was the limit, but then I kept thinking of how I’m afraid of heights. The limits then shrink, don’t they?

I’ve wanted things in my life, sure. Sometimes I’ve even expected some of these things. You know the deal. When you’re a kid the adult world seems so vast, but like it will never show up anyway, so why take so much time thinking of how it will really be. Just paste an idea onto that idea and you’re golden. I used to say when I was an adult I would take time for me (as if I was so put out for my time when I was a kid). I used to say when I was an adult I would have lots of money and want for nothing. Little did I know that these were two entirely separate things.

So, yes, I expect things like food, and clothing, and a place to live, and I’ve always had these things. Maybe that’s why I expect them, but they’re not promised to me. They’re not promised to anyone, but they are where the line pretty much stops with me and expectations. I hope for things, but I don’t get myself twisted up over them. If I get them, great, but if I don’t… well, I wasn’t expecting them anyway so no skin off my back. Yikes, that phrase stops me short. It’s like the one that goes, “There’s fifty ways to skin a cat,” or something like that. I pity the poor cats.

Anyway. I know people who expect many things, and then they work to make these things happen. Sometimes their work pays off and they achieve whatever they wanted, and sometimes it doesn’t and they don’t. Then they’re devastated. They tell me that it was worth it, though, to expect, because how else are you going to get anything? I tell them I work just as hard, without those expectations, that I strive for things and hope to reach them, and if I do that’s amazing, but the fall isn’t as hard. If that makes sense.

Perhaps it’s all in the definition. Being a word-minded person, it strikes me that this could be the difference of opinion, in the simple word choice and what these words mean. To me, an expectation is like the result of a math problem. 1 + 1 will always equal 2. If I do this + this, I will get this. That’s where I just can’t subscribe to the word as a way of life. Too often people do their absolute best and it just doesn’t work out for them. Too often this has happened for me. I can’t go through the utter devastation again.

But I’m a hopeful person. Anyone who knows me can tell you this. I hope for things, and I do my best to make those things a reality. In fact, to this point in my life I have been able to make many of these hopes come true, and I feel utterly blessed for this. I’m also a realistic person, and I realize that my hopes do have a ceiling, that not everything is attainable, even if I want it or need it. I’m excited about the present, and the future, because I know there are more positive aspects of life that I have yet to explore, and I cannot wait.

I will wait anyway.