What did you expect?

If you’re a regular reader (I think there are at least three of you), you might remember a post from about a year ago. It was all about the power of six words. It focused on the whole “less is more” concept — how so much can be said in so few words.

Well, the other day I was reading a post from a favorite blog I get in my inbox every morning. It's a blog about life and stuff, from some always positive, very inspiration-filled individuals. Normally, I don’t like cliché, sunshine-up-my-butt advice from people who always seem happy.  Those types of people creep me out. But this blog I like because it features quick little one-hitter style quotes that can sometimes pick up my mood and help me take on the day ahead.

This time the post sitting in my inbox was all about expectations. The one-liner that grabbed me: “It didn’t go as planned, and that’s ok.”

I took that one-liner, cleaned it up, shortened it a skosh and made it into what is now probably my all-time favorite six word story: “Didn’t go as planned. That’s ok.”

Man that’s some powerful shit right there. Think about it for a minute. There’s a ton of wisdom in that tiny little sentence.

Expectations are like a story we write in our heads. Most of the time that story ends up being fiction. 

It’s a good thing to set high expectations for who we are and the kind of life we want. But expecting everything to work out just the way we think it should — that’s probably not gonna work out so good. The only for sure in that kind of thinking are really sharp chest pains. 

For example:

I figured I’d be famous by now, for what I’m not sure, but famous nonetheless.

I thought I should have a super hot wife and a couple extremely athletic kids. Didn’t happen.

I wanted a nice big house with a pretty little white picket fence, a three-truck garage, a recording studio and a downstairs tavern with one of those tappers built right into the fridge. Hasn’t happened, yet.

But you know what? That’s ok. I ended up right here because of everything that didn’t happen. I have people and things in my life that I can't imagine living without. And if everything would’ve happened just as I thought it should’ve happened, those people and things wouldn’t be here right now. 

And that’s not ok.

JS