bemore – Faith of the Heart

The fallacy of great expectations

Do you ever get so caught up in how you think people will react to a particular instance or event, that when they do actually react it takes you utterly by surprise? In a way you perceive as either good surprise or bad surprise.

I’ve had a few moments like this recently. I always want to see the best in people, and as my own harsh critic I place tough expectations on myself, for myself. But, when other people fall short of my own personal expectations I’m disappointed. Which is insane, because firstly these are my own expectations for myself, and secondly we are each an individual. We don’t want people all the same. We need differences. Like the saying goes: variety is the spice of life. Having differing people creates a healthy balance of opinion and, well, general interestingness.

The thing about expectations is that hopelessly believing (or wishing) that people will react and be the same as you can be self destruction. It inadvertently hurts me when I feel people let me down – which isn’t fair. They never signed up to those expectations in the first place. It’s literally not you, it’s me.

Instead of thinking how we would be in any given situation, it’s more useful to readjust our mindset – what would so and so do? If I was so and so what would I think?

Habits take time to develop, and life is one continuous development. If only it came with a guidebook…

Working nine ’til…well nine

The current pandemic, or “situation” as you will, has really turned things on its head. For the most part, it has totally changed the way people are working – from being furloughed, having to socially distance at work, changes in work activities/tasks, to working from home (and I am sure there are many stages in between).

For me, I’ve been working from home for three months now. And whilst working from home has never bothered me before, I feel it’s starting to take its toll. Not only in terms of becoming increasingly harder to differentiate home from work, and vice versa, but also the fact the working day is stretching out to 10+ hour days. It’s really made me rethink my career path and personal priorities – I find myself questioning whether this is really the career I want? Do I really want to work for an industry that takes advantage of people having to work from home and tries to squeeze more out of them, because… well … what else do they have to do?

Am I really happy in what I do?

If you ask, most people would say they want to contribute to something meaningful. I don’t think it’s particularly from a place of blind faith, naivety, or cynicism of the corporate world, I think it’s more personal than that. It’s simply just wanting to do better and be better, because life is so finite.

Do I want to quit my career and become a missionary? No. But I do want more for myself – perhaps it’s the current world we live in making me forget my sense of purpose. Either way, I want to see the positivity of it.