Growing Up With Expectations

I remember my childhood days when I used to play with the Barbies my mom would buy me, the pony sets, and the tea sets and the kitchen sets and the Easy Bake Oven my dad got me. Quite frankly I never really enjoyed any of that. I always wanted LEGOS and puzzles and books but my mother always wanted the pretty bright pink and even purple toys for her precious daughter. Don’t get me wrong I appreciated everything they gave me and I gotta be honest the toys were pretty cute but I guess I was always too nerdy for any of that stuff. Regardless, I played with them and had fun.

I went to school, got the grades I needed and kept on going year after year. I studied, did my homework, I played here and there, had (and have) my friends. Today I still talk to some of my friends that I met as a child, and I think that is something pretty amazing. I’ve known them for almost half of my life and when I think of it that way I feel old but looking at it differently I’ve just started to live. I’m not old, but old enough to understand many things. I’ve grown so much over the last couple of years.

Looking at it through a different perspective I see how everyone has changed. Some of my friends are already married, some are mothers and fathers of beautiful young and bright kids. Some of my friends are starting to graduate from college and some are just about to finish. That’s life isn’t it? You’re born, you live your childhood, teen years, adult years, maybe have a family, have a job and life goes on and on until we leave this world.

My mother confessed she had high expectations from me, she wanted me to be a lawyer some day. Me, a lawyer? Sure I argue often, try to prove my point but I would’ve made one sucky lawyer. Unfortunately and thankfully her daughter (me) is on her way to becoming a scientist (told you I was always a nerd). My sister married not so long ago, now everyone has expectations that I’ll be the next to walk down an aisle and give my parents new grandchildren. Hold up, I’m only 21. Why is it that society has this kind of notion of marriage and the whole start a family ASAP thing. I believe my trust issues and inability to form a real commitment to a relationship scares my mother more than myself. My friends are asking me, WHEN? When am I finally gonna commit to a relationship, I don’t know maybe after I’m done with my career and I have lived my life a bit? Surely, that’s not too much to ask is it?

As a child I would play house like many others. But never did I think that I would be getting pressure from my family about things like this. I saw it done to other people as I grew up and I always thought that was a silly thing to do. Funny how things turn out. Growing up I saw the expectations for others and now those are the same expectations on me. All I know is one thing, I’ll just let time do it’s thing and in the mean time I’ll continue to live my life happily in my own way.

Smile, don’t let expectations get in the way of your happiness.

Truth

Here is something that not everyone is able to handle well, truth. Surely you can think of at least one time when someone you really cared about lied to you. It could been something as simple as “a little white lie” or something even more devastating. Whatever the reason may be we lie everyday. Are you alright? Yeah. Truth? Not really. What is it about the truth that we can’t handle sometimes? It may be the fact that we alone create a world of safety, a world where we feel like everything is fine and dandy when in reality it may not be exactly what we created.

Sometimes we refuse to listen to the truth around us, to the truth behind the lies we are fed all the time. At the sign of a crack in our perfectly charming world we enter a stage of denial and its usually downhill from there for a while. I’m talking about the lies of betrayal and even the deception of just about everything. We’ve all felt it, we’ve all been through it and its not a great feeling.

It’s funny how we don’t want people to lie to us and yet we lie as well. It’s funny how we want the truth and when the truth finally faces us we run and hide under the nearest table and deny its existence. Funny how things work, don’t you think? Personally, I don’t like lies. I prefer the truth upfront whatever it may be than to find the truth on my own and live in deception.

Sometimes the truth is actually just what we need to make our day. We may find something to better than we expected and its those times of truth that make so many things worthwhile. We live in a world of lies, but every lie has a truth. It’s all about how you take the truth that makes the real difference.

Smile, the truth isn’t such a bad thing after all.

Change

Not to long ago I had a conversation with a friend of mine, in that conversation he asked me what I thought my flaws were as a person. Interesting. I must say he is an interesting character and wonderful person full of surprises. A person who is not afraid to ask you what is exactly on his mind and seems to pick up even the smallest words you say when someone else would only think they are fill-in words in your sentences. My flaws? I have many.

My biggest one is I’m terrified of commitment. I can commit happily to work, school, family anything except a relationship with someone. I usually run away at the first hint of things going well. I have trust issues. I am a perfectionist in many aspects. I am a stubborn person, way too stubborn for my own liking. I can get a temper easily but that is actually a rare thing. I like to be alone (as you might already know) and that seems to be a flaw in many people’s eyes. I have many flaws, that’s just how I am but these flaws make me who I am. I’m not saying it as an excuse to continue them, I know I have many things to improve upon but this is me now.

My mentor told me once that we cannot change people and that seems to be a major mistake by everyone. Seriously think about it, how many times we’ve seen our friends enter a relationship thinking they can change the other person only to end up in a breakup? If you don’t want people to change who you are as a person, why should we even try to change others? Everyone has flaws and we make mistakes often, we are only human. If you enter a relationship hoping to change someone then why be in the relationship in the first place? If you love someone you love them for who they are, if you don’t and want to model them into someone else then why not find someone who meets your expectations to begin with?

Can we change? Certainly! However, not all of us can and not all of us who do change over night. Changing is a difficult process of leaving what we already know us to be into something we aren’t. Many of us change over the years, its a slow process. A process of us becoming someone new, sometimes for the best and sometimes not for very good. Change is change and everyone has their own way of changing. Some people will be more than willing to change for someone they love, and some may not. Whatever the case may be we can’t make everyone happy by being who we already are. The thing we must understand is that we must accept that fact that we cant make everyone happy. If you have flaws that you want to change, fine and if you don’t that’s fine too! It’s all up to you, its your life. But if you don’t want to change don’t expect others to change for you if you can’t do the same for them. Its all about compromise and feeling happy about who you are as person.

Smile, be happy for who you are.

Alone

I’m one of those people that loves to spend time alone as much as I love to spend time with the people that I love. For me, spending some alone time is necessary to be who I am. I love my friends and family (those most dearly close to me) and they know it too. I need to be alone sometimes, I just do. I can’t explain it, I just need to spend some hours on my own. I want to have some degree of freedom to know that I can do just about whatever I want to do. To know that if I want I can wake up and go to a movie and have lunch or go shopping all on my own. I like to do things on my own, that’s just who I am.

Some of my friends and family take it the wrong way that I don’t like them or whatnot and that’s not the case. When I spend time with them I like to make them feel what they are to me, special. But I firmly believe that everyone should have the opportunity to have some alone time. To me alone time is important because it is time for me to see new things, think of new things. Often times when I am alone I feel like my thoughts are clearer without anyone to influence my actions. When I’m alone I know exactly the kind of person that I am, because there is no pressure, nothing. When I’m alone I can focus on my environment completely and many times I have found this to be extraordinary for I have found things about myself that I never new existed. I learned by observing other people, observing their interactions with others and by taking the role of a lonely observer into this world that we all live in. It’s quite amazing I must say, looking in instead of looking around confused and unfocused.

Smile, look at the beautiful world around you.