I’m delighted you’ve taken a momentary rest from all that boxing to indulge in a bit of my, ahem, deep, sophisticated, and scholarly analysis (read: self-important mumbo-jumbo) in this, my 6th Annual Boxing Day Blast. If this is your inaugural edition, I recommend you either A: Get out while you still can – there have been enough disappointing inaugurations of late and that little trash can is just a click away, or B: Tuck in, spread some Marmite on your toast and enjoy – I promise this’ll be much more delicious than yeast extract. In fact, with five years of Boxing Day blogging under my belt, I recommend you keep calm and carry on with the expectation that you’ll be both a- and be-mused by the following. (C what I did there?)
Six years later and I’m still staying up way too late on Christmas typing up these emails. I’ve effectively replaced letters to Old Saint Nick with letters by Old Saint Mac, Nick’s lesser-known tech-savvy relative who is guided by Router the Red-Nosed Power Source. (Cookies and Apples were involved in both occasions.) So for those used to this annual tirade, I’m sure you’ve been expecting this email to grace your inbox with varied levels of anticipation and/or dread, just as I.
Funny things, these expectations. Before we are even born we have a set of them waiting for us – inconspicuously painted on the walls of our nursery and strategically placed in our cradles. In a so-called classless society, the bootstraps by which we’re meant to pull ourselves up sure don’t fall far from the feet that formed them. “Sure, they’re your bootstraps… we’ll just be inside monitoring each step, just in case. Oh, and don’t forget who bought you those boots.” In fairness, we can let our parents off the shoestring for this one as expectations attack from all angles – culture, society, religion, MTV… even our birth month carries presumptions. (Pisces are meant to be unobtrusive and weak-willed. Whoops.)
I, along with thousands of others, recently had my expectations jolted by an airport that wasn’t prepared for bad weather. (You’d think London and Paris have tropical climates with their inability to handle this oh-so-exotic “snow” that only falls, oh, every year.) Weary travelers, myself included, simply didn’t know how to react when our expectations were not met. Furthermore, the concept that something as mundane, prosaic, and tired as the weather could take out the unbridled beast known as “The Holidays” was as inconceivable as iocane powder.
Awaking in my childhood bed (five days after expected), the obligatory state of jet-lagitude hung over me, mimicking the overcast skies and live-streaming Seattle through fog-tinted glasses. It was in this cloudy state that I began thinking: Are there massive expectations I’m not meeting? Sure, I’m not exactly ticking the boxes of normalcy, but if I really am defined by a set of hopey-changey expectations, just how’s that workin’ out for me? Expectations define us. They define our past: Where did you grow up? What was your major? Who did you fall in love with? Yet expectations also define our future: When will you get married? Where will you buy a house? How many children will you have? Yet what about the present? Where does that leave today? And more importantly – when did we stop living life in the i-n-g and begin living in the e-d?
It’s no mystery that nostalgia and hope stand equally in the way of authentic experience. Longing for the future is as anti-life as dwelling in the past. So I guess what I'm stewing on about is that we should challenge ourselves to evolve beyond expectations if we desire to be i-n-g instead of e-d. We must continue traveling, accomplishing, achieving, and living rather than becoming content with being traveled, accomplished, achieved, and, well, we all know what the past tense of living is.
Sitting around a table with my closest high school friends (speaking of not living in the past), I realized that each of these inspiring, loving, stunning women are continuously challenging expectations in their own lives and this is leading to their resounding success. Lots of i-n-g happening around that table. All of them are not only working but also providing – so stick that in your expectation-pipe and smoke it.
The overarching theme of 2010 then became as clear as Seattle’s snow-capped peaks flashing their flossed fangs in some cosmic plea for dental health: We must not be defined by expectations. If we lack the iron and fizz to take control of our own lives, if we insist on guiding our lives by expectations, then the powers that be will repay our indecisiveness by having a grin (or five) at our expense. Should we fail to pilot our own plane, we can’t be surprised at what inappropriate port we find ourselves docked. The dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous systems like an onion; romantic dreamers will end up in Nebraska. Or so says Tom Robbins.
So I’ll finish with this…
In 1931, Henry Ford made an 80-year forecast into the future. (Pause for recognition that this puts us at 2011.) The New York Times headline read: “The Promise Of The Future Makes The Present Seem Drab.” But contrary to the eye-grabbing headline, Ford actually took a more introspective approach that “perhaps our most progressive step will be the discovery that we have not made so much progress as the clatter of times would suggest.” Rather than idolize technological, automotive, or industrial expectations of the future, he went on to say: “After all, the only profit of life is life itself, and I believe that the coming eighty years will see us more successful in the real profit of life. The newest thing in the world is the human being. And the greatest changes are to be looked for in him.” Therefore, the only expectation we can hold fast to is change. Expectations included.
In light of antiquated assumptions that attempt to keep us in the e-d, I reflect with a humble heart on the inspiring people who continually keep me i-n-g-ing. Wishing you and yours peace, love, and a hopey-changey 2011.
Six years later and I’m still staying up way too late on Christmas typing up these emails. I’ve effectively replaced letters to Old Saint Nick with letters by Old Saint Mac, Nick’s lesser-known tech-savvy relative who is guided by Router the Red-Nosed Power Source. (Cookies and Apples were involved in both occasions.) So for those used to this annual tirade, I’m sure you’ve been expecting this email to grace your inbox with varied levels of anticipation and/or dread, just as I.
Funny things, these expectations. Before we are even born we have a set of them waiting for us – inconspicuously painted on the walls of our nursery and strategically placed in our cradles. In a so-called classless society, the bootstraps by which we’re meant to pull ourselves up sure don’t fall far from the feet that formed them. “Sure, they’re your bootstraps… we’ll just be inside monitoring each step, just in case. Oh, and don’t forget who bought you those boots.” In fairness, we can let our parents off the shoestring for this one as expectations attack from all angles – culture, society, religion, MTV… even our birth month carries presumptions. (Pisces are meant to be unobtrusive and weak-willed. Whoops.)
I, along with thousands of others, recently had my expectations jolted by an airport that wasn’t prepared for bad weather. (You’d think London and Paris have tropical climates with their inability to handle this oh-so-exotic “snow” that only falls, oh, every year.) Weary travelers, myself included, simply didn’t know how to react when our expectations were not met. Furthermore, the concept that something as mundane, prosaic, and tired as the weather could take out the unbridled beast known as “The Holidays” was as inconceivable as iocane powder.
Awaking in my childhood bed (five days after expected), the obligatory state of jet-lagitude hung over me, mimicking the overcast skies and live-streaming Seattle through fog-tinted glasses. It was in this cloudy state that I began thinking: Are there massive expectations I’m not meeting? Sure, I’m not exactly ticking the boxes of normalcy, but if I really am defined by a set of hopey-changey expectations, just how’s that workin’ out for me? Expectations define us. They define our past: Where did you grow up? What was your major? Who did you fall in love with? Yet expectations also define our future: When will you get married? Where will you buy a house? How many children will you have? Yet what about the present? Where does that leave today? And more importantly – when did we stop living life in the i-n-g and begin living in the e-d?
It’s no mystery that nostalgia and hope stand equally in the way of authentic experience. Longing for the future is as anti-life as dwelling in the past. So I guess what I'm stewing on about is that we should challenge ourselves to evolve beyond expectations if we desire to be i-n-g instead of e-d. We must continue traveling, accomplishing, achieving, and living rather than becoming content with being traveled, accomplished, achieved, and, well, we all know what the past tense of living is.
Sitting around a table with my closest high school friends (speaking of not living in the past), I realized that each of these inspiring, loving, stunning women are continuously challenging expectations in their own lives and this is leading to their resounding success. Lots of i-n-g happening around that table. All of them are not only working but also providing – so stick that in your expectation-pipe and smoke it.
The overarching theme of 2010 then became as clear as Seattle’s snow-capped peaks flashing their flossed fangs in some cosmic plea for dental health: We must not be defined by expectations. If we lack the iron and fizz to take control of our own lives, if we insist on guiding our lives by expectations, then the powers that be will repay our indecisiveness by having a grin (or five) at our expense. Should we fail to pilot our own plane, we can’t be surprised at what inappropriate port we find ourselves docked. The dull and prosaic will be granted adventures that will dice their central nervous systems like an onion; romantic dreamers will end up in Nebraska. Or so says Tom Robbins.
So I’ll finish with this…
In 1931, Henry Ford made an 80-year forecast into the future. (Pause for recognition that this puts us at 2011.) The New York Times headline read: “The Promise Of The Future Makes The Present Seem Drab.” But contrary to the eye-grabbing headline, Ford actually took a more introspective approach that “perhaps our most progressive step will be the discovery that we have not made so much progress as the clatter of times would suggest.” Rather than idolize technological, automotive, or industrial expectations of the future, he went on to say: “After all, the only profit of life is life itself, and I believe that the coming eighty years will see us more successful in the real profit of life. The newest thing in the world is the human being. And the greatest changes are to be looked for in him.” Therefore, the only expectation we can hold fast to is change. Expectations included.
In light of antiquated assumptions that attempt to keep us in the e-d, I reflect with a humble heart on the inspiring people who continually keep me i-n-g-ing. Wishing you and yours peace, love, and a hopey-changey 2011.
