Why Your Shitty Expectations Always End Up Saving You

There’s a moment, I think, when your heart breaks. And it’s not as glorious as you’d imagined it. You’re sitting on your bed watching Grey’s Anatomy and all of a sudden you’re crying over every homeless person you’ve ever seen and shied away from, you’re crying over not listening to your mom when she told you over and over again not to do it, you’re crying over the man you thought he was and the man who you wish he could be, and then you’re crying harder because you’re even crying at all.

That moment, as gut-wrenching as it is, is essential to your wellbeing as a human specimen. If you’ve had something come close, you’ve succeeded. You see, that moment is the moment that your expectations slap you in the face. You expected yourself to give the homeless person some change – anyone with a heart would. You expected defying your mother to be a lesson to your mother and not to you – because you know everything and you can predict anything and who is she to stop you from chasing your dreams? You expected him to apologize and tell you that he loves you and only you and always will for the rest of his life – because he has to love you and cherish you and realize just how special you really are.

You’re right, on every account.

You’re also wrong, on every account.

Now you’re pissed. You’re brooding and no one can say anything to change your mind because you’re brooding and it’s easier than facing what the hell actually happened.

So, what now? You bitch and you moan and you walk through life as if someone owes you something.

But the only person who owes you anything is you.

The key to winning a battle with your expectations is realizing that forgiving yourself isn’t as hard as it may seem. It’s actually liberating. You live and you learn. Heard it before, right? You’re going to make decisions and sometimes those decisions will be mistakes. Tons of mistakes that will bend you and, more often than not, break you. Remember the moment that I mentioned earlier? It’s essential to your wellbeing as a human specimen. Human. You. You’re human and you think you’re given this ONE lifetime to perfect absolutely everything? Come on. Now that’s hard. It even seems like somewhat of a burden.

Learn to forgive yourself. Over and over and over again. It’ll suck and it’ll hurt like hell and you’ll wish more than anything that you never had those stupid expectations in the first place. But you’re human. And your expectations arise in your life to show you that, yes, you’re human, but you’re also the one that’s going to be six feet under when this ONE (again, just one) lifetime that you have ends. So forgive yourself. Over and over and over again.

And if you don’t do it for yourself, at least do it for me. You owe me that much.