TASK 8: CARRY THAT WEIGHT
“The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.” William Arthur Ward
Now the above quote was about sailing, which I don’t do–frankly, I’ve never been on a sailboat. I’ve been on a motor boat, the kind that you use when you go water-skiing, which I have done, poorly, on the choppy waters of Lake Erie, thought to be honest more beer drinking was done than skiing, which was probably the reason I did it so poorly.
I KNOW what I expect from other people… But I don’t give enough thought about what they expect from me. And I should.
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But I digress. Back to the quote. On the surface it’s about giving yourself permission to be flexible, not rigid; to stop fighting life or trying to force thing to happen the way you want them to happen; instead, as the pro athletes say: let the game come to you. But for me the quote is also about expectations–that is, it’s not just about YOUR expectations, it’s also about what OTHER people expect from you.
Let me spell that out. I KNOW what I expect from other people. From my wife: fidelity, honor, stability, faith (that erections don’t come as easy when you get older, but that they will reappear from time to time), understanding (when I cry about the Browns), trust (that when I covet the neighbor’s stand-up paddle board it doesn’t mean that I am actually going to run out and buy one); I expect certain things from my friends, my kids, my co-workers, my parents–the expectations are mostly different from person to person, but there are common ones…
But I don’t give enough thought about what they expect from me.
And I should.
So I drew up a list. I put down the name of every person that I care about and next to the name I put down what they have a reasonable right to expect from me. Next to one guy’s name I wrote: he expects me to pick up the tab every f–ing time we go out–and I couldn’t think of anything else about him, good or bad, so I pulled him from my list, because as I said, you only want to list people you care about).
It was interesting.
TASK
You try it. Make a list of everyone you care about and next to the names list what you think they expect from you. I think you’ll be surprised at the result.
Photo by 3dpete