The Dark Cloud of Expectation
Easy Read
Thing is we’re all bound with glorious purpose of sorts.
Could be to explore the stars, could be to shed a few pounds.
The danger of ambition of course, is it’s accompanied by a great deal of expectation. Prickly, slimy, nasty creatures that can cripple you, leave you anxious and postpone your happiness.
Normally manifested in a belief that progress looks like:
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going good
going good
going better
going better
going great
going great
success!
So when we’re smacked with the reality of progress:
trash
worse than trash
trash
not bad
getting there
bad but bearable
trash again
getting better
better
good
not bad
good
very good
success!
We feel flummoxed, deflated, like failures.
Because it’s never nice seeing ‘slow’ progress.
But growth isn’t some magic epiphany. It’s a slow, long series of tiny adjustments and invisible decisions. Most without celebration.
So still hold on with tight white knuckles.
Do that while releasing yourself from the expectation that improvement is a motorway when actually, it’s twisty country roads.
A minefield of potholes and tight bends. Struggle defined. It’s getting stuck behind tractors, overtaken by manics at 120mph, another tractor, clear roads, a learner driver, then down a slip-road and onto the motorway. Clear air.
That’s progress.
Imperceptible movements + time = colossal change.
Where in three years you look back and say “damn, look how different I am.”
By Ryan Heaney.
