Expectations vs. Reality
Firstly, I did nothing today and I do not regret a single minute of it. Recently I have been putting myself through so much worry that I am physically and psychologically in a lot of pain.
I was re-reading what I wrote yesterday and I felt horrible. I realized that I am harming myself without realizing it. I do not mean it in an alarming way. I meant that I am making myself miserable. And, for what?
Exactly that's what I kept thinking about. Why am I miserable?
I have a loving family and very nice friends. I get to eat what I want to whenever I want to (except when I am on a diet! Ahem!). I live in a nice neighborhood with good people (I hope, I never really checked on them), and a lot of them have cute dogs! I have been given the chance to education, to my own thoughts, to basic freedom, hygiene, to everything a person needs, all the basic necessities.
Then, why am I miserable?
It was quite obvious but still, I needed to sit down, think about it and chalk it out.
I am miserable because of my expectations. Not from the world or others. But, only from Me.
I have realized that whenever I write about myself, I always talk about how I am not good enough. But, I sat down and thought about it. I am not really a bad person. I know I write a blog every night, about myself. I know I come across a bit eccentric, a little weird and a lot self-centered. But, seriously hear me out.
I am not a bad person for sure, but in my eyes, I am not good enough. It is not because I compare me with others. No, I have always believed in, 'to each their own'.
I am not good enough because I do not meet my own expectations of where I should have been or what I should have been doing.
I am going to be 30 this year. And, as a child, I had a life road map where by 30 I was going to get my Ph. D in English literature and start working on my first novel. Well, evidently that hasn't happened. I do not know why as a 10-year old I thought getting a Ph. D was the coolest thing in the world, but I did.
That was my one and only focus till my undergrad. I knew I wanted to do my Bachelor's in English Literature and that is all I focused on. I really worked as hard as I could have and did all I could to follow my dream. But, dreams are just mere fiction. You dream when you are sleeping. But, I was dreaming open-eyed, so it all felt like a reality.
Anyway, for varied reasons (I will talk about it one day, I promise, it is not the most fascinating story but I will talk about it anyway!) I couldn't follow that path. So, I changed it and modified along with the situation. But, at every turn, there was something or the other. And, slowly I realized the more I had to modify or adapt the greater the expectations I had from myself.
In reality, I am a 29-year-old woman who has a Master's degree and professional certifications from two of the best universities in the world and have worked for 6 years on my own, earning a lot more than my peers did at the time. I have been able to take care of my family financially and otherwise, as needed and expected of me. I think I am there for my friends and family whenever they need me. I have put others' needs before mine quite a number of times. I make sure to give to the community as much as I can. I know I am lazy but hey I know I am a decent human being. I know I have struggled with my health and weight for a while just like many, but hey I decent looking. I have always tried to do the right thing or what I thought was right. In reality, I think I am a good enough human being. I try never to hurt anyone intentionally and always try to be empathetic.
But, in my world of expectations, I feel like I have pretty much done nothing with my life. If I spend one day without working or studying or or-or or-or...I feel like I have completely wasted it. I know that I feel like I am nowhere close to where I wanted to be, professionally. Fortunately, though I do feel lonely, I have convinced myself to give up on that one aspect of life; love. So I actually never disappoint myself for being single. I mean......so single!
Anyway, I think I need to learn that it is okay to not expect sooooooooooo much from myself. I mean I am human! (I am almost 100% sure of it.) And, I have had experiences that have hindered my progress in life sometimes. And, honestly, I am not in a bad place. But, then again it's all about expectations vs. reality, isn't it?
I will give you an example of how my brain works. I was sitting the other day getting angry with myself for not studying hard enough for the upcoming GMAT exam. I kept thinking how much time I have wasted by not studying for it in the past year and a half. So, to give you context, I wanted to do an MBA in 2016. But that year I had gotten an opportunity to study marketing at a prestigious college in Canada without giving the GMAT but couldn't go due to issues. Anyway, I decided not to waste an entire year and come to the USA and do a professional certificate in Marketing and Business Administration while I try to apply to business colleges to do that MBA I talked about. While doing this, I was still finishing up a 2-year long professional certificate from Stanford. So basically, while studying I was studying. Why am I telling you this? Because, when I got so angry with myself for not studying hard for GMAT, I took a minute to evaluate all that I had been doing in the past year and realized, with all that I was doing there was almost no time to study for GMAT without going insane. Did I mention I did a full-time internship in between too?
So, though I know that I had expected to be better prepared for the test than I am right now because I had so much time to prepare but, in reality, I never gave myself the time that I really needed.
This was a bizarre realization because it opened my eyes up to a lot of the others things from my past. Even when I used to work 18 hours a day, I felt like I wasn't doing enough. I think with each and every barrier I faced I created expectations and goals which were failable to being with. I do not know if I really think I can do it all but in reality, for me to do everything I want to do, I have to live alone and never go out but just sit in one place and work and study; all the time! I do not want to do that. I want to live my life. I want to travel, go out, read, eat, meet others,
I feel after coming to the USA and meeting so many different kinds of people from different parts of the world, my desire to explore the world has become even more intense. But, the expectations of how much I need to study or work has increased a lot too. And, I feel finally they have caught up with each other and hence my brain has successfully gone into a meltdown.
I was thinking the other day, what will happen if I do not get a good score in my GMAT or if I do not get to do an MBA? Will I not still be me? Will my previous education, work experiences just vanish into thin air? No, it won't. I will still be me. Maybe I will not able to reach the position where I want to in the timeline I want to, but I can still do them. It took me some time to realize what I always tell others: Life is too short to be bogged down by our thoughts. What I have is enough. Wanting more is fine. Working for it is good. But, to make it the only way to know if I am good enough or not, is not right. I am not defined by that one thing only. I am a lot more than that. We all are.
Whenever I feel disappointed with where I am currently in my life in relation to where I want to be, I remind myself of what is happening in the rest of the world. I remind myself of the people who are in actual real bad situations. Life is really precious and I know that I am so lucky and so privileged that I have the time, energy and fortune to spare on just sitting and thinking about how I disappoint myself. Because so many on this earth are not even given the opportunity to think. They just have to live. So many lose their lives without getting the chance to even get the basics.
I have to remind myself that even though my expectations are and will almost always be quite ridiculous and sometimes unattainable, I can always rejoice in the fact that my reality isn't half bad!
Tata!