Expectations and realizations...

The other day I ended up taking a 9 hour car ride to pick up an important part for work. I took this ride with my boss' daughter who also happens to be a friend of mine. During this trip we were talking and she helped me come to a realization.

In my recollection, the only times I ever get annoyed or upset are when I have expectations. Expectations of myself. Expectations of my friends. Expectations of my family. Expectations of life.

• Up until recently I have expected myself to be perfect. I control myself do I not?

• I rarely expect anything more of my friends than that they don't take advantage of me in any mean way. Their quirks are what make them different and why I love them.

• I for some reason keep expecting that my family will understand me even though I'm quite sure that's fairly impossible. I find it amusing right now that I expect my parents to understand me despite the fact that I rarely open up to them because I understand that they might not keep it to themselves.

• What do I expect of life? I've probably spent the better part of the last 7 or so years with only one defined goal in life. I wanted to eventually get married and have kids. It's amazing how a call from God to go to Bangladesh for three years can wipe out an expectation and I'm quite ok with that at this point.
  

This draws me to some other thoughts that relate. I think my relaxed and laid back style are a result of this regardless of whether I knew it at the time or not. I think over the years I've realized that it's easier to just go with the flow than it is to expect something and get bent out of shape.

I'm not wishing to change that. I'm just calling it how it is.

This then pertains to my approach to Bangladesh. I haven't done a ton of reading and research to try and understand everything about Bangladesh. I would rather learn about who people are by experiencing and building my own opinions rather than risk being lead astray by other people's opinions. This is not to say I'm trying to be totally ignorant, just very cautious about what I let myself "know" before going.

I will likely still do the reading but it will probably be in reflection afterwards to see if the writers were right.

So yeah....
That's all I've got for now.
Sorry there isn't any funny stories yet.
God Bless,
Phil