high hopes & low expectations in 2024
Hello lovely people, It has been a while. Happy new year. I am glad you are here and I thank you for coming back to this outlet. I have been absent and lacking creativity after my first drop, maybe because I am not used to writing online. I want this to be a place where people feel like they belong and resonate with what I am writing. I think a good place to start would be to talk about the past year as anyone does on Jan 1st. To set intentions and ask questions about how we can move forward and keep moving ahead with high hopes, yet low expectations.
This past year collectively has been a beautiful, bright, adventurous, soulful, fulfilling, and solo year. A year of many struggles yet many more glimmers. I was so eager last January to leave my hometown, to escape, to feel some sort of belonging, which I didn’t feel( and not sure i even feel even now). I spent 3 months working hard to make the last of my money for my travels and instead of appreciating the smaller moments, I felt like i was in agony waiting for the better future. After my 6 months of freedom and independence, i came home with more lessons and growth that i could of wished for. My number one lesson being to be in the moment, accepting my feelings as they are, and to continue to open my heart for connection and love, in whatever form that may be. It was hard to not feel like my work had been erased when I came home and felt a horrible rush of high expectation of myself and feeling like a failure.
How weird is it that my brain cut to that as a final result? That I was behind in my own timeline. Maybe because I didn’t obtain what I thought I would keep. I didn’t keep up the attitude I had worked so hard to keep. But who’s holding me to that? No body.
It’s taken long hard years to lower my expectations of myself. To have high hopes for life yet low expectations of my life, what’s around me, the people around me, and of the future. You cannot change nor control anyone or anyone’s actions and that bothered me. Why would my parents act like that? I wish they did this instead. Why would my partner say that to me? I wish they did this instead. One of the hardest challenges for me personally was ( and still is) trying not to hold high expectations for the people around me. This led to wanting people to change in the way I thought they should, not how they actually are. I’m sure this isn’t rocket science for a lot of people as many people are self aware. But it just felt so unjust to me, why they would react that way. Or why they always responded with reactivity in that certain degree. Holding others and myself to a high standard, a high expectation, leaves nothing but stress and worry for myself. No one else is thinking about you as much as you are. Everybody has different reactive times, different coping mechanisms, different ways to evolve. Being hard on expectations and holding a high standard will end up to lead you being repeatedly disappointed, in yourself and in others. I should be proud of where I am today and what I have accomplished. I am a walking achievement and you are too. Everyday you choose to get up out of bed is good enough. That is having low expectations on yourself and high hopes for your present and future. You can feel confident about a situation but keep it balanced and realistic of what also could occur. High hopes yet low expectations.
This year I want to implement High hopes and low expectations. A phrase a loved one expressed to me. What does this mean to have high hopes yet low expectations? Doesn’t it mean the same thing? It means wishing and hoping for what’s good to come, yet not feeling so unjust and distraught when things don’t go your way. It is okay to have high expectations if you can handle the outcome. For someone like me, it makes me take many steps back when something does align how I predicted it to. That’s why I’m making sure and holding myself high to not expect the most from people. Not to expect the most from me all the time. You are on your own timeline and worrying only makes things worse for you and your vision. Everything meant for you will be there. You can’t miss something that is meant for you.
Let’s have high hopes this year and low expectations for ourselves, the world and people around us.
