After getting my wisdom teeth pulled I had a few days of isolation to dive into my mind which is something that usually I don’t take the time to do. I expected it to be structured and organized similar to how I maintain my surroundings but boy was I in for a surprise. It felt like I was looking at a picture of the universe. Everything was fragmented and floating around with no clear origin to where everything had started and to where everything was growing. After floating around in the space of my mind I had drawn two conclusions. The first conclusion is only relevant because of circumstances. The second conclusion, which is the reason I am actually writing, is centered on how people including myself view and create goals and manage self-expectations. So just to kick this off on a lighter note, getting teeth pulled sucks and having all four done at once is suffering I wouldn’t wish on my enemies… or even my ex-girlfriends.
Now for the real discussion
Living on your own has a real interesting way of letting you know exactly how comfortable you are with yourself. During my time of isolation I realized that that this is something that I have been battling with for various reasons. Most of them are centered on many of the reasons we all beat ourselves up about; career goals, financial goals, companionship, personal goals as well as others. Unfortunately, because we have 1 billion other responsibilities these are things we all manage to push the back burner and neglect until it blows up at an inopportune time… similar to the NY Jets this season (still pisssed).
Being that it was close to the time of year synonymous with reflection and resolution, I figured I should try and map out some goals and expectations. What I discovered was many of the things I wanted to accomplish were very attainable such as financial stability, career advances as well as other personal goals and that they were similar to many recent college grads. The caveat was that the time frame that I mapped was skewed and for the life of me I couldn’t figure out why I had this expectation that I could accomplish everything I wanted in such a short timeframe.
[Car tires screeching followed by the sound of crunching metal, shattering glass and a moaning woman]
I had hit a mental road block at the same time my neighbors started having sex (damn thin walls). I figured it was time for another glass of wine to keep my mind off the throttling my neighbor was giving this banshee of a woman.
Spending time with yourself has a way of bringing to light how comfortable we are in our own skin and especially in our own minds. I had found an answer to my final question around the same time I had found the bottom of the glass of wine. I was setting expectations and goals based on two schools of thought:
1. The Academic Promise & Method of Success: You can accomplish anything you want if you work tirelessly and discipline yourself in 4-6 years and after you have your degree, life is easy.
Like many of my friends I had created expectations and goals that I could realistically reach in an unrealistic time frame. Now I dare not say that the prior can be scaled to represent my entire demographic in society as a whole, but I do believe it is reasonable to say these are far from isolated sentiments. What is important to recognize about this time in our life are the details of planning our goals and expectations. In school, we looked forward to the next grade, the next test and finally the piece of paper that symbolizes completion. Real life in contrast to academic life has many more factors with an ending defined by the environment as well as how the pilot chooses navigate through it. We must plan for what we can expect, deal with what we cannot and remember that there is no substitute for hard work, ever.
2. Societal Expectations of Success: The assumption that a person who is happy and successful should possess certain things materially, career wise as well as a particular lifestyle.
The best way I can put this is by stealing a line from a comedian, “Stay in Your Lane.” We all must realize our strengths, weakness as well as our capabilities. I am not by any means suggesting complacency. Alternatively, I am trying to enforce that learning to find a way to become opportunistic in the situations we are presently in will be the barometer that will gauge our future successes. It is important for us to take the time to get to know ourselves as well as to live in the moment while we pave our own paths. Looking outward to another’s accomplishments to make a template for our own paths will never grant us our full potential because we are not truly living for ourselves.
We are constantly in a battle of trying to achieve our goals on a daily basis. We share the drive of everyone before us as well as the ambition of everyone that will follow us for one reason, to achieve happiness. Spending a little bit of time to know ourselves and to develop opportunistic patience are the best tools we can give ourselves in mapping our paths to happiness because after all, what more can you ask for in life?
“Who does not wish for a rested heart so that they may have a quiet mind?”
