Expectations in Life That Do Not Pay Off

As the landing date for the Pirate approaches (side note - if you don't know who the Pirate is, read here) I sometimes wonder what the whole event will be like. You always hear how people say that it is the greatest day of their life. I can't write about that right now but it did get me to thinking....

There seem to be sooooooo many things in life that do not live up to expectations. I think part of this is because the media often fans the flames of hype and we all fall in line. It is my belief that the vast, vast majority of the time we are left unsatisfied or even disappointed. Here are a few examples:

New Year's Eve

Ugh, how I hate NYE. Is there a more overrated event than this one? I know it is cliche to say this but the clock strikes midnight and I feel the same. I don't know why we're supposed to remember old acquaintances while we're drinking. Every place you go out to that night is absolutely packed. On the years that we stayed home, we would invariably look at each other and feel some kind of shame that we didn't go out and do something else. Not that we wanted to. On some level I think we just felt out even thought there wasn't a place that we wanted to be. We seem to have found our niche in the last few years by just doing small house parties with friends.

Your First Time

Was this good for anyone? I know that it is probably far worse for women - the pain is probably bad enough, but I imagine that the guilt that some feel might be worse. I can't relate to that but I don't know of a guy that had a particularly great time either. We've wanted this more than life itself since we were eleven years old and the truth is the party doesn't last too long.

The ironic thing about this is that the events that preceded the actual act usually did live up to the hype. To quote the line from High Fidelity, we just knew that we wanted breasts. We didn't know why we wanted them, we just knew that we did. I think those first few times of any kind of action were much easier because they were so harmless and because there were no real expectations. Well, maybe there were... maybe the better way of putting it is that you really couldn't be disappointed (other than being told "that's far enough", of course).

Your Wedding Day

Now before you jump on me about this one please hear me out. I put this on here not because it isn't a great day but becuase there is so much hype and time and money spent on it. And all anyone says is that it was over in a flash. I like what Rebecca and I did - we kept it as small and as simple as possible so that it wasn't over in a flash and there was just as much (if not more) meaning. I think we'd both do it again the same way.

I think the tide is turning on this one as more and more people are doing it simple and saving their time/money. After all, the party for your friends parents only lasts a few hours. The jump start that you can get for the rest of your life by saving this time and money should prepare you for the rest of your life.

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I know what you may be thinking - this sounds like doom and gloom. Not true! I've come to realize that the real joys in life are the moments and not the events. I couldn't be happier than when I'm sitting in my hammock with a book on a cool summer evening (it has to be cool - the mosquitos are terrible). We were at Crystal Beach last friday at sunset just as a storm was coming in - it was amazing. And the best thing about these moments? They are almost always unexpected.

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As you may know, Christopher Hitchens (my favorite author and someone I really look up to) is suffering from esophageal cancer. He finally addressed the topic in his upcoming article in Slate magazine - you can read it here. In different turns it is heartbreaking, inspiring and humorous - I hope you give it a read.