EXPECTATIONS?

What can I write here?

Yet again I am in the mountains surrounded by snow.

Different mountains from my first set of mountains in Japan back in 2013, yet, a feeling of nostalgia surfaces. The sky softened to hues of pink, reminding me of the snowball fights by my workplace cafeteria after work, or that one time I tried to jump the kicker on my snowboard and instead belly flopped and slid to the dormitory front door.

The snow and mountains also brings a feeling of cleansing, the fresh air, the whiteness, and that the end of another year is closing in.

Another year. As scary as that is to realise it is also kind of liberating. Things feel… new?

I feel entitled to look back on the past 12 months and realise that, no, I’m not the person I was this time last year. I’m so much more.

That, yes, things were not easy.

However, yes, I know myself so much better now because of all the bullshit that happened.

Would I wish away the hardships? Not in a heartbeat. Would I wish for 2022 to be kinder? Hell no.

Make it hard as hell. Teach me more. Am I a masochist? Probably.

This year I feel like things really slowed down.

Somehow, even more than last year with pandemic panic.

This pace took a lot of adjusting to, even towards the middle of the year when I was working very little, I still struggled at staying still. I criticised myself for not doing more. Pre-covid time and 2020 I was quite the work-a-holic in addition to being a student.

But the thing is slowing down doesn’t necessarily mean you are being lazy and not achieving anything. Such a simple, perhaps obvious statement that if I had accepted it earlier I wouldn't have spiralled down into a ditch of self hate. After falling into a ditch it’s hard to find much motivation and then you truly do nothing.

For most of the year I was distracted by my external failures, such as workplaces that fell short of my learning expectations, people who I misjudged and let me down, relationships that fell apart, plans I couldn’t execute, plans I executed but didn’t go the way I hoped, failing to make new connections with people…

All I saw was failure. That I was a failure. It came to a point that I felt too tired to even try any more. Yet, there was always that nagging part of me that I could do more. That failure is a stepping stone.

But I was so, so tired.

I fell into a ditch.

Everything was pretty dark.

And I was too stubborn to ask for help, so I just let myself drown.

I was so distracted by achieving things externally, that I had forgotten the value and how essential achieving things internally were.

If you ignore that you inside you too long, if you don’t deal with that shadow self, it will crawl up and submerge you when times are dark.

I had long forgotten about caring about myself. I cared about what I wanted to do, but I always hesitated to speak up when things could inconvenience someone else. Perhaps hurt someone else’s feelings or cause conflict. All the anger I felt I directed towards myself and believed that I had failed in some way.

At one point I became a negative, unmotivated, emotional, antisocial and needy version of myself. Even looking at those last two characteristics you can see the serious conflict. Antisocial yet craving attention. All characteristics which I dislike in others and would never label myself as such.

Yet that was me. And so many more negative disowned traits.

I arrived at a place when so many things fell apart that I realised my problems were not external. That no matter how much I tried to solve problems on the outside, nothing would work. Everything was internal.

However, at the same time I say that the problems were internal does not make ‘things’ my issues alone.

Everyone has their problems. Relationships of all kinds, workplace, friendship, romantic relationships… they can hit walls when the related parties have their own shit to work on. However, you cannot control things external to you. You cannot control the way those people feel, what they believe, how they judge, their desires or their attitudes. All you can do is respect the differences or walk away.

This view is one I gained from stoicism back in the beginning of 2020. I had forgotten my lessons.

“To avoid unhappiness, frustration, and disappointments, we, therefore, need to do two things: control those things that are within our power (namely our beliefs, judgements, desires, and attitudes) and be indifferent or apathetic to those things which are not in our power (namely, things external to us).”

- William R. Connolly

I came across stoicism when a friend talked to me about the story of Sisyphus, a God who cheated death twice and was cursed by Zeus to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down on him

for all of eternity. The moral of this story is finding meaning in what seems futile, that perhaps we are forced to push a symbolic boulder up a hill only to have it roll downtime and time again but we should accept what we learn from each time we roll that boulder up the hill. That perhaps the circumstances seem meaningless or disappointing, however, we can control how we think about our situation and what we believe we gain from it.

That is the thing. Nothing is a failure unless we think it is a failure because of preconceived expectations we hold or what we believe others hold for us.

“If you’re not trying to make people fit into your preconceived notions of what you like and dislike, you will find that relationships are not really that difficult.”

-Michael A. Singer

However, this can lead to the argument of whether or not expectations are bad? Surely without expectations, we are less likely to be disappointed by people or ourselves, but would no expectations hinder growth? Is it even possible not to have expectations, even subconscious ones?

I personally believe expectations are important. That you need to have things to aim towards or qualities you seek in relationships of all kinds. However, expectations of yourself or others should never be too high because disappointments can hinder growth. Just because certain qualities do not currently exist does not mean they will never exit. That you need time to know yourself and others more in order to see the full potential, that more can be offered if you believe it can be offered and help to foster skills.

But. I am an optimist. Perhaps to a fault.

But fuck it. Most people are pessimists in this world.

I am not disregarding what is bad, I acknowledge it. There are terrible things in this world and really terrible people.

However, for myself, for others, I believe we can be more if we want to actually be more and if we give a shit to realise how we have failed until now.

I intended to write about what I got up to this year but somehow I wrote about a Greek God pushing a boulder up a hill.

I did not meet my expectations. I know I will do it next time though.

I am always so quick to forgive someone else but never myself. Always telling myself, “fuck you, you dumbass. You are useless.” Why can’t we treat ourselves the way we treat others?

I am learning to be a bitch.

Also. I am not a dumbass. Just so you know. Intelligence comes in all forms.