(no subject)

[felicula]

2)Expectations

I began my climb up the Wildcat Ridge, known as one of the most rugged hikes on the east coast. Steep climbs over jagged rock mark a relentless ascent. The climb over the Wildcat is brutal, grueling, and at times, harrowing. But it is what it is. Completing it is as much about expectations as it is about perseverance, physical endurance, and strength. If you begin the climb expecting to skip along as if you were on a Sunday hike, you are already in big trouble. Expectations... What do you expect it to be? You'd best approach the Wildcat Ridge with a straightforward honest assessment of what it will be: long, tough, painful.

There will be moments of grandeur and a truly powerful feeling of accomplishment in the end, but the time between will leave you wondering why you began. If you go in knowing this, the Ridge will fall away and the hike will be a triumph to remember. But if you go in thinking that it will be easy... that there will not be times of pain... that you should not be hot and tired... that there will not be times when the hike is anything but fun... in short go in thinking it will be anything other than it is, then the hike will seem like a mistake rather than a rewarding challenge. Many things in life are like this, all about expectations. How you think about things has a direct impact on how you experience them. Facing challenges is very often as much about expectation as experience. To often, we have mis-expectations. We believe things should be better, easier, different than they are. At these times our experience is clouded by expectation. It is as if there is a layer of untruth between ourselves and the reality we are living. Peeling away that layer, getting down to the real truth, be it "mean or sublime" is essential to living a whole, happy, fulfilling life.

It is not always easy to look with honest eyes. We would rather everything lived up to our best expectations. But few things do. Most things are more real than we would like them to be. People are imperfect. They make mistakes. They say the wrong things. They get angry and tired and short-tempered. Community is imperfect. It is always reaching toward what it can be, but is often not what we hoped and dreamed we would find. If we approach these things believing they will be anything other than they are, we will be disappointed.

At the same time, though, if you can approach these things with open eyes, knowing that they will be just what they are, it is possible to find peace even in the most difficult of life's climbs.