Here’s your day.
You open your eyes and…. no sunshine. What’s that about? Weather forecast said it’d be blue sky and you had planned on going for a run in the morning to finally get into shape. Ain’t gonna happen. Then you remember that COVID-19 is somewhere out there and the election is coming up and, surely, half of the folks are going to do the wrong thing. Rolling out of bed becomes a dire deed.
A walk into the kitchen doesn’t make things better. Hubs is already sitting at the table, sipping his coffee. Yes, HIS coffee. That’s the only coffee near and far. “I never know if you want yours with soy milk, oat, black, sugar or what. You change your mind all the time, so I thought I leave it up to you.” Woah, thanks. Apparently, expecting a tiny cup of coffee from your spouse is too much to ask for these days, and you’ve had your coffee black for at least a month now. Not that anybody would pay attention.
Teen kiddo is still in bed. Great. That means you’ll have to drop him off before you go to work, because he’ll never catch the bus. You drag your kid out of bed, across the breakfast table and into the car. Every light turns red, just for you.
At least once you’re in office you can have a chat at the coffee machine (and yes, they have soy milk in the fridge. It’s not that hard, you know?). But the pleasure doesn’t last long, because your boss comes around the corner. “Good time for a hot drink, isn’t it?”, she says and that is one hell of a message. You both know how much work still needs to be done on this project. Well, since your stomach just turned into a hard rock, at least you can skip lunch and catch up on work. Won’t be able to eat anyways. You feel the look of your colleagues as you walk out of the office at 6pm, but you can’t help it: time to pick up the little one. You already feel bad for putting her into day care for ten hours a day.
Little one seems to have her own issues, because she’s entirely unwilling to get into the car. It’s raining, it’s late and you’re tired and pissed off, could your daughter not for once be quick to hop into the car and stop making things even worse? Yes, puddle hopping is fun, but not NOW!
Home at seven and you’re not even surprised to see the breakfast dishes still in the sink. You call your friend and hope to get some relief. Instead you hear her saying “well, at least John cooks breakfast and drops Suzy off at day care every morning. I wish Sam did that much. He’s out at 6am and doesn’t appear until after dinner.” Except Sam earns a hundred thousand dollars, takes them on great vacations and never misses their anniversary. That conversation doesn’t go well either and you finish the day wondering what the hell is wrong with your life.
If you are like most people, you find yourself overwhelmed by the thought of how many things you’ll have to change to have a better life. From the husband, kids and in-laws to the boss, work load and salary to traffic, weather and the neighbor’s dog, there are just too many factors that play against you.
“And now you want to tell me that it’s all me…”
Um, no. “It” is not you. And yes, the only thing that can change the world is in you. It is called expectations and I bet you knew that.
Before we go into what expectations are and how they mess up our lives, let’s get some myths debunked first:
My/their expectations are (un)realistic.
Should you lower your expectations?