Grated Expectations

Yesterday’s post was all about delegation. And so I delegated today’s post to my other half, as if to test myself out on how well I could let go…

Honestly though, by the time I’d reworked and edited his work, I could have done it myself, seriously.

Ok, no, just kidding you.

Or am I?

Day 19 – A Sensitive Cynic’s Christmas Survival Guide.

Guest post by Jason Excell

Unrealistic expectation is an old enemy of mine and one that I know all too well, so when my wife asked me if I’d like to contribute to her Christmas Survival Guide, I knew the perfect topic to go with.

I expect she knew that would happen 😉

Picture the scene:

I leave the office for the day, feeling happy and just a tad smug because I love my job and I’m exceptionally good at it, I find it extraordinarily interesting and it pays well to boot.

The short bike ride home allows me to enjoy the sensation of using my toned muscles and gives me a chance to reflect on the fact that I pretty much have all the answers and that my life is lovely and wholesome and neat.

After putting away my bike in the spacious shed resting on my neatly trimmed, bright green lawn, I walk into my perfect little house to be greeted by my happy children (taking a break from their homework) and spy my gorgeous wife sitting at the table waiting for me to join her for dinner.

That idyllic existence is not my life (with a couple of exceptions – my wife is gorgeous [why thank you – Ed.], my children are mostly happy and I do own a bike), but rather it is the existence that I expected to have when I was a child looking ahead into adulthood. Some of that was just me and what I thought being a grown up was like, some of it was Hollywood and its perfectly-crafted happy ending. And part of it was believing the masks of faultless joy that we all tend to wear outside of our own four walls. Whatever the cause though the point is that my expectations were way off the mark, they were unrealistic, ill conceived and doomed to failure.

I’m not saying you can’t achieve your childhood dreams – though I was sure that when I grew up I would be a wrestler, a boxer or a writer and I’m too old for two of those now – but lets be honest, there’s nobody out there who has all the answers. In fact, far from having all the answers I find that I actually just have more questions, though with age comes perspective and the ability to find it amusing – “hey, I know nothing!”

Expectations that can never be met then – that’s something that I struggled with immensely for most of my life, until a couple of years ago actually. It boiled down to this; in approaching a situation, an occasion or an event, I would have a picture in my mind of how it would go (usually without a blemish) and of course it would never work out that way – the sulking that would follow my unmet expectations (yes I was a sulker) was the stuff of legend.

A good example for you is marriage – as we grow up, books and films often imprint upon us the script of wonderful, effortless, joy filled marital bliss, but when reality bites you find out that marriage is really hard work that requires dedication, compromise, self-sacrifice and whole shed load of grace. I firmly believe that Hollywood (and a few other spinners of yarns) has a huge red hand in our society’s rocketing divorce rates, but that’s a blog for another post…(seriously, don’t get me started!)

Okay, so I expect you’re wondering what this all has to do with a Christmas survival guide. Well, to my mind, there aren’t many occasions that we approach with such high (and let’s be honest, unrealistic) expectations more than Christmas right?

I mean think about it – we gather our (frequently extended) family together in one room (disaster recipe if ever there was one) and expect everyone to get on beautifully.

We expect (and feel expected) to be able to produce a meal of Hagrid-sized proportions covering at least 3 courses all of which must be prepared to perfection and is to be served at the exact right temperature, on a table set with posh tablecloths, beautiful decorations and festive napkins (shaped like swans to make people say “ahhh”) along with the stunning silver cutlery that someone in said extended family bought and sees the light of day but once a year.

We expect to give wonderful and thoughtful presents and we expect to receive the same in return.

We expect our children to open a pile of presents, be stuffed full of sugar, be bombarded with excitement and yet behave wonderfully, always minding their manners and being grateful for the socks and pants that somebody wrapped in such an exciting way.

We expect

We expect

We expect

See a theme emerging here?

Why is that? What is it about Christmas Day that it has become such a high bar of Little House on the Prairie-esque faultlessness? The honest answer is that I don’t have an answer (bet you didn’t expect that!) But I do know that down that path lies misery. If you allow your mind to paint with vivid colours of perfection on the canvas of expectation then you will probably find yourself  feeling a bit let down come Christmas evening….feeling a bit flat, a bit empty at the whole anti-climatic day that you had built up so much. Honestly, read through that list of expectations again real quick – it sounds to me like a pressure cooker of stress and time squeezed madness that would crack even the Brady Bunch.

Reality check – there is no such thing as the perfect Christmas (despite what Hollywood tries to sell you!) There I said it! And I say that because other than Jesus, there is no such thing as a perfect person. We don’t live in a perfect world – life is messy, people are flawed, mistakes happen, wires get crossed.

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not pointing you down the path of pessimism here, not asking you to hop on the cynical cycle –  that’s the other extreme and when I mentioned winning the battle a couple of years ago, it wasn’t by becoming a realist. Like I said, people will mess up, life isn’t perfect, things don’t always go to plan, but in all of that, there can still be an abundance of joy and happiness – just not if you’re expecting perfection from perfect people in a perfect world.

 So, I expect you’re wondering – How then is it possible????

Well, for me the key was my relationship with God. By spending time with Jesus in prayer and in His word, the bible; He showed me not only the problems with the expectations that I had of others and of myself, but also how to respond when my expectations are not met.

Unrealistic expectations of yourself or of others has a tendency to result in anger, resentment and unhappiness (said in a Yoda voice that was – “hmmm”). This is because expectations are often centred around something we need, or think we need. We all have needs and it is important to us that those needs are met. But the problem lies in expecting a need to be met by the wrong person, situation or thing.

Let’s imagine, for example, a man who lost his mother as a young boy. He may look for that mothering need to be met by his girlfriend or wife in later life. Clearly, this is an expectation that she can never meet. Were she to try, they would end up with a a very unhealthy relationship.

Then there are some needs that we have that only God can meet – plain and simple – and if you project those needs on anyone or anything other than God, that will always be doomed to failure. I believe that we are all created to have a relationship with our creator, which makes that a very key need that only God is able to meet. Sadly though, many try to get that need met by a spouse, hobbies, alcohol, or “insert word here“.

So the first key thing is to look at the need/s that sit behind the expectation and for those needs to be met in the right way and by the right person – I started to look at my expectations and ask myself if they were centred around a need – and if so, was that a fair expectation of that person?

You’d be surprised at how many weren’t fair at all.

The second key thing to look at is realism. I know somebody who has an expectation of themselves to be able to do something the first time they attempt it and if that fails (and for obvious reasons it usually does) they won’t bother trying again. You don’t need me to tell you that that clearly qualifies as an unrealistic expectation, but what makes me sad about that is….. imagine all the things they might be exceptional at if they just tempered their expectations with some reality (and seasoned it with a sprinkling of grace).

Where does that come from? Why is that bar so high? In their case I don’t know, but as I mentioned earlier Hollywood has a  lot to answer for as far as my expectations used to be. So take a look at your expectations – are they fair? Are they realistic? If somebody had the same expectation of you as you have of them would you be okay with that, could you meet it?

Thirdly what do you hang on those expectations of yours? As I’ve said I used to be a sulker – if my expectations were not met that would literally ruin my day or my relationship – I must have been a nightmare!

The bible tells us of a Messiah, a promised saviour who would come and lead God’s people. The Jews expected that saviour to arrive as a king, probably on a gold-embossed chariot and wielding a hefty sword with which to smite their enemies. Their expectations of what their saviour would be were so engrained and dependent, that when God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ (the Messiah) they could not accept it and… well, you know the story.

How reliant on your expectations being met is your happiness, peace and joy? As for me now – I’m working at being like the apostle Paul, and finding contentment in all things because my most essential need (that relationship with God) is being met.

Finally – cut yourself (and everyone else) some slack! God really impressed upon me a couple of years ago the amazing depth and completeness of His grace and forgiveness. If God had expectations of me, believe me I would fail them, time and time and time again, but right there, even when I fail, He loves me and forgives me for it all.

As I’ve absorbed that, reflected and meditated upon it, as I’ve really let it sink in, it has had the effect of not only making me better at forgiving myself, but made me better at forgiving others too (often for doing nothing wrong except not living up to my expectations!)

Believe me when I tell you that there is tremendous peace in that, there’s immense freedom and I’m a nicer person too (bonus!) Try it – you won’t be disappointed.

So then, back to Christmas – let’s condense it down into a mince pie of meaning (sorry). If your hopes for Christmas Day are around the perfect presents, the awesome dinner, the harmonious family gathering….well, the chances are; you’re heading for festive flatness, friend. Approach it however with your needs in the right places and with the right people, with your expectations firmly centred in what is realistic, with your happiness not dependent on everything being perfect and with a heart to forgive when they aren’t, then you just might get the Christmas you expect.

Thought for the day

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life

Task for the day:

Hmmm, I get to set my wife a task? Nice! Well, here it is:

Revisit your “Blue Skies Christmas” that you were tasked with on Day 1. Have a look at each thing you wrote down and run each one through a checklist of Need, Realism and Dependency. Make sure you’re still happy with what you went with and that you can approach the day with an air of expectancy that’s grounded in reality.

 Also –

Complete the jobs that I normally do while you’re typing away like Jessica Fletcher….

Leave me alone world.

When I woke up this morning, I just felt, to use a much overused word of the times, “meh.”

It wasn’t depression (I know what that feels like), it wasn’t even glass half empty thinking, it was just plain “I just can’t face it today”, and by “it”, I just mean living life, being awake and having to function. To be fair to me, I am completely and utterly exhausted, recovering from a stomach virus and so I’m probably just in need of a good meal and lacking in a few nutrients. Yeah, must be a lack of B vitamins.

I dragged myself out of bed at 7am (ish) and headed in zombified fashion towards the kettle, my usual routine, but today the heaviness was crushing me. It dawned on me what date it was.

15 years since I met my lovely husband. A day to celebrate!

Pay day (for my husband) – Phew!

I should be happy! Why am I feeling so low? I have two beautiful children, a home and food on the table, a husband who adores me, who just spent the last few days when he wasn’t working taking care of things at home, willingly, happily, so that I could rest. I mean he even held my hair for me when I was throwing up in the loo! (And cleaned said loo beforehand for me!). Yes, I am blessed beyond belief.

I am a musician, I play with some brilliant musicians, I’m doing some really exciting stuff with music at the moment. I love it so much, and when I’m playing good music, I’m literally in a state of bliss.

Most of all, I have Jesus! Hallelujah! The joy of the Lord is my strength!

Yep. All true. But still, that cloud of weariness, of can’t-face-the-world-ness persisted.

Meh.

Why? Today, it is not the fact that I lost my much-loved mum-in-law and had a miscarriage within a month of each other during the summer. Those things, as heartbreaking as they were, were not on my mind this morning. Even though I wrote a blog yesterday about the whole experience, pouring my fragile heart out, shedding tears, and then lost the whole damn thing just as I finished it. I knew I couldn’t write it again for a long while, it was too emotionally exhausting.

But it wasn’t that that was making my day dark this morning.

I should have prayed and read my Bible instead. My normal routine, while clutching my mug of tea. My little bit of peace and quiet before waking the kids. But I couldn’t face any deep and meaningful thinking about life. And I couldn’t be bothered to talk. So instead I bombarded my mind with Facebook statuses and images about, um, LIFE. Good move. I scrolled through with half opened eyes, quickly, because I couldn’t really be bothered to read anything properly.

I am confronted, at 7 am, cuppa in hand, with LIFE in all its beauty, it’s ugliness, it’s mystery, it’s infuriatingness, (I realise that’s not a word, sorry, but, well, meh) – all shot at close range at my fragile, sleepy mind like rapid gun fire.

One mother is going to do a nature project with her children about something my son would love. Why don’t I get off my lazy butt and do stuff like this? I’ve been talking about it for ages and not actually DONE anything about it. But this mother has.

Sigh. “I am not a good enough mother”.

One person is lamenting the germs shared on public transport. Mentions something about Ebola. I feel sorrow for the people, deep sorrow, for them, those who are seeing it ruin their whole community, losing loved ones to it. Some people are risking their lives to help. Not me. Me, I’m too knackered to get out of my pyjamas.

Someone is ill. Needs prayer. A Bishop has been cleared of some allegations, someone nearly missed their plane, someone wants me to help save the polar bears, someone wants me to buy a spa party planning kit (ha! yeah right), someone I went to school with is holding a random baby I know nothing about (a quick thought flashes in my mind that I should be blooming by now), someone is remembering a lost loved one today, someone is telling me that “life is a rollercoaster, you just gotta ride it” (please sod off now), someone is excited about the Christmas markets (no, Christmas stress, leave me alone it’s October for heaven’s sake!), someone shows me a picture of their cat (ok, that’s cute but not enough to cheer me up), someone quotes a hymn about Jesus and  hard trials and something about “though the whole world against me convene, I’ll triumph at last, there’s nothing between”, someone shares a picture of a dog collapsed on the floor and the caption “I just can’t handle life today“, someone is so excited about blah blah, someone has the best hubby in the world (really?) and another angry about blah blah. Someone is sharing a bluegrass song called “Life is like a Mountain Railroad”.

You got that right.

I wander into the kitchen and turn on the radio while I make up the children’s lunch boxes, get them breakfast, empty the dishwasher. I’m not really listening, I’m beating myself up that I just can’t seem to get back on that damn horse and achieve my goals. I remind myself that I did actually work myself to exhaustion to get the house back in order the other week and that’s probably why I got ill and now feel too tired to do anything. Alright, maybe I’ll let myself off a bit.

An interview with Ann Widdecombe comes on the radio and bursts into my consciousness (she’s got that voice you just can’t tune out…):

“So Ann, how do you manage to achieve your goals, to write books etc when you are so busy?”

“You’ve just got to sit down and write. Like my mother always said, things don’t get done themselves! I’m sorry there’s no other way around it, you just have to get on with it. Sometimes you take too much on and you have to work through that, but generally, if you want to do something, just get on and do it!” (or words to that effect).

Good advice Ann. I turn off the radio. But today is not one of those “just get on and do it days”. When life is on-the-edge-of-your-seat a plain disaster, I immediately pray. But when I just feel “meh”, like there’s no sense of urgency to get a smile back on my face, I sometimes just want to sit it out a bit. To explore it. Wallow in it. I used to immediately search for a plaster of sorts, a quick fix Bible verse or praise song. But today, I just want to feel my “meh-ness” in all it’s fullness.

I don’t want to become so cloudy that everything turns to darkness though, so I turn on some nice chilled out gospel bluegrass album and eventually some song called “The Unclouded Day” comes on. Oh the irony. But all I can do is listen to the violin and mandolin playing and think “I will never be that awesome”.

Even I am annoying myself now. Pull yourself together woman!

Yes counting your blessings helps. Thanking God for the good things, it’s good advice.

Yes praying and reading the psalms helps. It’s helped me more times than I care to remember.

Yes, a cup of tea is always a good tonic when you feel those blues.

All those lovely positive quotes on Facebook, not bad advice. Usually. But today they can all xxxx right off.

Yes, knowing that one day I’ll Fly Away to God’s Celestial Shore (Hallelujah by and by!), where sorrow and sighing shall flee away, can help me sometimes when life is an uphill struggle. But today, well, just no.

But I don’t want to write a three point blog-sermon that says 1) Here are the challenges of life 2) Here is me empathising that life is tough 3) Me concluding that it’s the times of difficulty when we know God’s love and comfort, when we change the most, learn the most blah blah blah (Hallelujah!) so just count your blessings and smile!

I might write one of those blogs one day, they can be helpful.

But today I’m writing to you honestly, I’m staying “meh” long enough to write about it from the vantage point of “I just feel low today” rather than “hey I felt blue earlier, but then I did XYZ and now I’m happy again!”

There will always be blessings mixed with frankly horrible, evil, terrible things in our lives. When I lost my mother in law and my 11 week pregnancy, it was a time of wonderful healing in my marriage. It was a time of doors being opened with my music. It was a time when I learned stuff I could only learn through experiencing loss. It was a time of growth I can’t describe. Honestly I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

I laughed as I met with friends, played at gigs, within a few days and weeks of losing my baby. I still don’t understand how I could have done that. But I did.

And then, only a few weeks ago, I stood in the middle of the supermarket while choosing baked beans and sobbed my heart out about the baby I lost. Took me completely by surprise. I expected the tannoy to announce “Flooded floor in the tins aisle”, such was my uncontrollable outpouring of grief. But people just walked on by. No one took any notice of this strange woman holding onto her trolley, as she attempted to stifle wild sobs on each inhale of breath. Sobs which were escaping without permission, leaking out from within the emotional pain which had surfaced following a casual glance at an innocent mum-to-be, who’d been lovingly stroking her bump in the laundry aisle.

We’d laughed within seconds of seeing our beautiful mum/mum-in-law take what we thought was her last breath, before making us all jump with another, final one, (“that’s mum all over – stubborn to the end!” we’d said affectionately). And then we’d wept bitterly. And we’ve been crying, and laughing, and feeling everything in between ever since.

This is the stuff of life. The irony, the mystery, the totally messed-up-ness of life and death and loving and losing. The making the most of precious moments, tinged with the sadness of knowing they won’t last forever. Whether with a child who is growing up too fast, or a dying parent.

Sometimes it’s ok to just be meh. Or be depressed. Or be wildly ecstatic. Or to pull yourself up by your boot straps and get on with it. There is a time for everything. A time to weep and a time to laugh. A time to mourn and a time to dance. A time to be silent and a time to speak. Everything in its season. But often, the seasons seem to all come at once. It’s not the pursuit of that emotion called happiness that makes us happy. It’s not being happy that makes us happy. It just heaps more pressure on us. I have more to say about such things, but not today.

One thing I know, Jesus felt it all and everything in between. And I love him for that. It’s comforting. That’s not my point 3 of the sermon by the way. I’m just saying.

Now excuse me while I go and draw the curtains, cry my eyes out, feel sorry for myself for a while, stress about the responsibility of parenting and feel overwhelmed about what to cook for dinner (while feeling guilty for being overwhelmed and not grateful for food on the table!) Then I might just eat that chocolate my husband bought me and send him another silly snapchat of me looking fed up with a caption of “15 loooooong ass years!!!!”, giggling my head off.

Meh.

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