TOW: Expectations

You know, with the end of my internship, the start of what I like to call a vacation, (but other people might term 'extreme unemployment') there's a lot to be said for what we expect in life.  What I have learned every day, since I started my internship, and now that it's finished, is that  we all have expectations.  We expect to be treated a certain way, we expect people to care about us in a certain way, and we expect to be respected--  in the workplace, and in life.

I'm not Charles Dickens, but those are Great Expectations, aren't they? 

Often, most of our emotional problems, relationship problems, and sometimes even financial problems arise from the fact that our expectations don't match reality.  There is nothing like biting into a burger and tasting onions, when you SPECIFICALLY asked for NO ONIONS!  ARGH! 

Heh.

I know, emotionally, I have been somewhere between being a complete wreck over the end of my internship, and being completely alright with the end of my internship.  (Usually the latter.  Eh heh.  Sigh.) 

When I finished my internship, my expectation, or my goal, rather, was to have two jobs offers by time I was four weeks into my internship.  Whether that meant another paid internship, or an actual job, I just wanted to have a next step in place. 

Well, I managed to get a job interview out of 25 resumes, but not a job.  I had 3 job leads, which lead nowhere. 

What we expect to happen in life, doesn't always happen.  But that doesn't mean we should stop dreaming.

Some of the best things in life are the best things for us because we have can endure the difference between reality and our expectations:  our expectations of other people, of our own needs, of things we want, and things we want to avoid. 

The beautiful thing about life is that expectations can thrill us, can ruin our week, can drop us into a bout of depression, or make us fight to win the day.  We can only look into the future so far, and while we can prepare for the future, we are never truly ready for it.

As they say, "Expect the Unexpected."