Great Expectations

Hopefully the title of this post doesn't get your hopes up that this will be a fantastic piece of writing like the book of the same name. Although if that were the case and you were disappointed at the end, it would oddly be fitting. At which point, my post would in some way be brilliant. There you go literature nerds, something that you can appreciate while the riff raff read through the rest of this unenlightened (unless they have Google).

Another thing I should point out before I start is that some of this may be repetitious of posts previous. It seems like I remember writing a little bit of what I want to write about and so I guess... I'm sorry? I don't know why I feel like I need to pretext the fact I may repeat myself. Maybe to at least recognize that I can be a broken record but ultimately I hope I am adding new insight.

I should also point out that this is also the first time that I had two pretext paragraphs. Oh, wait this is a third. Alright, let's get this ball rolling. Here we go:

This summer as a whole has been one that's been good and yet challenging. I will only make a brief comparison to last year (because I don't want to muddy one experience with the memory of the other) and that the challenges this year are ones that strike a little closer to the centre of my lifelong wrestling with finding connection with others. Last year, the big challenge was simple. Get as much high-quality done and give insight to situations between other people. This year, I feel like my expectations of what I thought I would find this summer are not lining up with reality.

From my days of working at Rogers I have learned that what makes people more disappointed in a given movie is not the quality of the movie but rather the predicted content of the movie not lining up with reality. If the trailer of the movie inferred it was going to be an outrageous Will Ferrel comedy and it turns out it was "Stranger than Fiction", people will say the movie sucked despite it was actually was a fantastic movie that was simply different from the trailer's portrayal of it.

In the same way, I think that that is what is happening this summer. This summer has been great but the expectations and what I wanted to have were not happening. I should point out that I am speaking of my summer as a whole, not specifically camp or the team or a certain situation.

I suppose I am handling my disappointment not too badly being that I have simply turned back to what I do so well and that is putting my head down and doing a pile of work.

I wish I could have aligned my expectations better so that I wouldn't be disappointed but I then wonder, isn't it okay to have expectations? Maybe even ones that may not be fulfilled? Is disappointment a necessary endeavor? This I believe relates to my earlier thoughts on being present and living fully. I want to find passion in this life and not just glide through not caring. My challenge is finding that balance between hopeful expectation and realistic expectation.

I broke a dear friendship I didn't think I would lose. I was wounded when my expectation of a relationship did not turn out my way and in fact turned out in the least favorable way. I was frustrated that I still have a hard time drawing close to people and I don't know how to change it. I was disappointed in myself and losing my patience with a kid and in some regards not living up to my own bar of quality that I have set for myself in years passed.

In my reflection and in a conversation with my mentor for this summer, Chris, I have wondered if it's because my expectation is not what fits who I am. I have sometimes compared myself to a person like the prophets of the Old Testament in terms of one who was outside the community and could speak into it, but has a hard time actually fitting into it. Probably more accurately and like many people, I perhaps expect far too much out of my relationships and thus I break them under my own pressure on them. Maybe it's both.

The answer I believe lies in the simple manner of being content with what you have and continuing to hope that following in the sacrificial way of love that Jesus displays will continue to refine me and bring peace. That my expectations will be reasonable yet hopeful. That I will embrace the good things and learn to be content when life is not what we wished it was. My ongoing prayer for myself and ultimately for all, is that all things are put back to the way they should be and that if we are able to bring realization to the hope of mankind who seek peace, then we will.

"Words you say never seem to live up to the ones inside your head,
The lives we make never seem to ever get us anywhere but dead,
The day I tried to live"
- "The Day I Tried to Live" from the Soundgarden album "Superunknown"