Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Marginally Great Expectations



Liberty Airport, Newark, New Jersey. Bad weather has marooned hundreds of grouchy would-be travelers who expected to merely pass through the Garden State on their way to somewhere else–probably somewhere where there is an actual garden. Instead they find themselves sitting between disgruntled strangers who smell like Continental’s Angus Beef Snack Sandwich (a plastic-wrapped object that resembles a cheeseburger, but tastes like . . . plastic wrap.) No problem. Nothing can ruffle my post-vacation state of relaxation. The Nova Scotia/Prince Edward Island leg of our trip wildly exceeded my expectations. I never dreamed that I would fall in love with unhurried Atlantic Canada, but I did. Which leads to my airport epiphany. The secret key to a superbly satisfying trip? Moderate expectations.

My husband lived in Nova Scotia for a couple of years and has always wanted to go back. It finally happened. I had limited expectations. I mean, have you ever seen glossy magazine ads beckoning you to the Cape Breton Highlands or the Bay of Fundy? Cape Where? Exactly. No Madison Avenue marketing campaign had filled my mind with air-brushed visions of my destination that the actual location couldn’t possibly live up to. Nova Scotia was free to take my breath away.
Contrast that with the X-ray vision glasses that you ordered off the back page of Boys’ Life magazine when you were a kid. You fully expected that they could “see through ANYTHING!” A nifty lesson on Expectation vs. Reality for only $2.99 plus shipping and handling. When did you realize that your Pet Rock was just, well, a rock? Or that the perfectly-frosted-three-layer cake that the little blonde girl pulled out of the Kenner Easy-Bake Oven on the TV commercial was made of plaster by adults with degrees in art. You ate the lumpy, dry Frisbee-shaped version that you made with a sense of innocence lost. What about Coppertone Sunless Tanning Lotion? In 1979 I slathered it on my cracker-white legs confident that I would look just like the bronzed model in the full page Seventeen ad. Try Terra Cotta warrior. The rusty orange tinge finally wore off my shins in early 1980. D’oh.
Bottom line? I prefer not to build my hopes on hype. Why would I let overpaid ad execs tell me where I want to go? They sell such a slick a pre-packaged vision of what the world has to offer that the real thing can’t possibly measure up. No thanks. I’ll keep my expectations moderately great so I can enjoy the surprise when the wonder of real life blows me away.
Does life match up with your unspoken vision? What unanticipated delight has exceeded expectation?
  1. JourneyBeyondSurvival 06. Oct, 2010 at 5:33 am #
    You see!?! This is why I am a pessimist. Right?
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 5:45 pm #
      There you go!
      • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:36 pm #
        I guess that’s one way to look at it–but in light of Carole’s post yesterday, I don’t think you’re a true pessimist. My modest expectations are not pessimistic so much as unconcerned. I trust life to deliver, if that makes sense.
  2. Heather Y. 06. Oct, 2010 at 7:37 am #
    Amen. You and I must be close to the same age, you mentioned all the products I experimented with. I only need to add one more to your list. Nair hair removal cream. Tried it numerous times, never did a thing. Just remembering the commercials ticks me off all over again. I saved up my babysitting money to buy the vile stuff, imagining a carefree world free of the shaving burden. Either my leg hair is unusually Nair resistant, or it was a sham.
    You and my husband would make great friends. His personal mantra is “It ain’t official until its official.” Meaning no anticipatory excitement here. We didn’t even emotionally celebrate our wedding day until the day after, just to make sure it would really happen.
    Of course, I am the complete opposite. Right now I am all whipped up about my last kids high school graduation party – 8 months from now. It will be Epic and I’m sure I’ll make it a topic of a future conversation. My poor husband just shakes his head, wondering how I ever survive in this cruel world.
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 5:46 pm #
      Hee hee! I forgot about Nair! The smell alone was enough to make me adopt the European attitude toward leg hair.
  3. nakiru 06. Oct, 2010 at 8:46 am #
    Oh, the Bay of Fundy. Really, one of God’s masterpieces. I’m so jealous of your vacation.
    I always have high expectations. Sometimes I am disappointed, sometimes I’m not. But my heart must still be pretty resilient, because I’m still an optimist.
    But what exceeded even my wildest anticipation? My 1-year-old nephew learning to say my name and his face when I show up.
    • Heather Y. 06. Oct, 2010 at 9:07 am #
      There is nothing better than being adored by a child. I am so happy your good nature is being appreciated by your nephew. He is obviously a man with exceptional tastes.
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 5:49 pm #
      I am an optimist, for sure. But I also find that I’m not easily disappointed. I guess I dream big, but can enjoy small. Your nephew–one year? Now that’s amazing!
  4. Alanna 06. Oct, 2010 at 9:30 am #
    I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoy being a stay-at-home mom. I was never one of those people who loved babysitting overly much, and they certainly portray motherhood as one of the most thankless tasks in the world. And sometimes it is and there are definitely days when I’m less happy than others… But overall, I really love it. I love being with my kids and seeing what kooky stuff they’ll come up with. The media doesn’t tell you about this part of it, and the people who DO try to tell you this, I usually didn’t believe (like my Mom!). So this has been a happy surprise!
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 5:51 pm #
      Oh, I hear you!!! Who could imagined the tiny daily joys and the unexpected laughter and the satisfying exhaustion. Definitely, parenthood has exceeded expectation in every phase.
  5. kellebelle 06. Oct, 2010 at 10:44 am #
    I turned thirty yesterday and stayed up too late last night writing about how it feels. I realized that I didn’t have any great expectations for where exactly I would be in my life at thirty, aside from raising a family, which I am doing. So it is hard to feel let down about where I am when I didn’t have any big idea of where I should be. Instead, I feel pretty decent. I can see that I made a lot of progress in my twenties (never mind how far I still have to go). I have a much harder time keeping realistic expectations on a daily, weekly, and yearly basis than I do in the long-term scheme of things. So for someone who is pretty hard on herself day to day, it’s a pleasant surprise to feel good at an age milestone!
    • kellebelle 06. Oct, 2010 at 10:45 am #
      Oh, and I forgot to say that I love your title. :)
      • kellebelle 06. Oct, 2010 at 10:46 am #
        And that I have pretty high expectations for Nova Scotia and PEI. I hope it will still be as fulfilling when I get there someday…
        • Craig 06. Oct, 2010 at 3:19 pm #
          My ex and I day-dreamed of doing one of those PEI vacation packages. The Anne books were such a pleasant surprise for me that I was totally up for it. Our vacation idea was regularly reinforced by the occasional run of the Anne movies, which was filmed on location.
          But a part of my heart has hung back on this idea (regardless of the divorce), because I greatly fear I’ve hyped myself up too much on the idea. Nevertheless, PEI is still on my to-do list.
          • K 06. Oct, 2010 at 4:50 pm #
            I love the recurring Anne theme on this blog. Oh how I love those movies! I think Megan Follows was born to play Anne. She didn’t have much of acting career after Anne, that I am aware of…
          • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:25 pm #
            Anne Shirley rocks. We actually went to Green Gables (LM Montgomery’s old stomping grounds, the house inspired Greene Gables in the books.) The haunted wood and Lover’s Lane are real places the LM loved. We hike all over Cape Breton Island, but those little strolls on PEI were the most romantic.
        • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:21 pm #
          It will not disappoint you. I definitely recommend it!
        • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:29 pm #
          I posted some fun pictures of our trip on my blog, if you want to make your mouth water a little.http://windsunexpected.blogspot.com/
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 5:54 pm #
      I felt the same way at forty, and as I close on fifty all I can think is “Bring it!” What’s the big cultural phobia of birthdays all about? I love getting older. Middle age is highly UNDER-rated!
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:30 pm #
      kellebelle-somehow my replies to you ended up down yonder somewhere. it’s a hopeless tangle, but there are several intended for you.
  6. K 06. Oct, 2010 at 1:08 pm #
    Yes yes yes. I am all about moderate expectations. I would never finish my dissertation any other way! I am thankful that I wasn’t one of those girls who started planning my wedding when I was three. Although my lack of pre-planning made the actually planning hard — I just didn’t have any ideas! It made me supremely happy with the end result.
    But I don’t think having moderate expectations is the same as being a pessimist, or contrary to optimism. Isn’t the identifying trait of an optimist that they find the good in everything? That seems quite compatible with moderate expectations. And high expectations. Maybe optimists aren’t as disappointed and pessimists are disapointed even when their expectations are low?
    Just throwing some ideas around.
    • nakiru 06. Oct, 2010 at 1:56 pm #
      :-) Optimism/pessimism maybe more depends on how you view your moderate expectations – do you keep your expectations moderate so that you are disappointed less, or do you keep them moderate so you can be more thrilled with the results than you would have otherwise. Is that what you mean?
      (Good discussion point, by the way.)
      • K 06. Oct, 2010 at 3:04 pm #
        Yes, nakiru! I think that is a good way to articulate it. Whether we are an optimist or a pessimist depends on WHY we keep our expectations moderate. Strangely, I am an optimist about things out of my control and a pessimist about things in my control. I think I need to have more moderate expectations of myself and celebrate the good in what I achieve rather than being always disapointed…
      • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:02 pm #
        Yes, my replies are drifting again,(K-my reply to your comment ended up below.) but I think you have all hit on where I’m coming from. Moderate expectations don’t spring from pessimism–they actually come from my love of life in all its manifestations and my willingness to roll with whatever comes.
        • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:06 pm #
          Having said that–what I object to is the manipulation of expectation that advertisers and the media throw out there all the time. No connection to reality, intended to produce enough discontent to get people off the couch and into the mall or the travel agency with credit card in hand.
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 5:57 pm #
      Agree 100%. Moderate expectations do not equate with doomsaying or negativism. They just leave me free to enjoy whatever comes–the great and the ok and the quirky and the comically dismal. Thank you for hearing me!
  7. annie 06. Oct, 2010 at 2:34 pm #
    i finally gave up cutting/dying my own hair. i’ve turned it fuscia, ended up with stripes instead of natural-looking highlights, patches of dark, and on and on. and most of this was post adolescence. you’d think i’d've learned by my 20s to leave well enough alone. but don’t worry, i still try. my mom enjoys putting the stories in our christmas letter. so at least someone gets something positive out of it.
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:08 pm #
      Hee hee! Never underestimate the importance of a good story for the Christmas letter. Think of all the fun you’ll miss now that you’ve turned the care of your hair over to the professionals.
  8. Craig 06. Oct, 2010 at 3:15 pm #
    Linen pants – I thought “meh,” until I bought a pair, and now I can’t imagine wearing anything else (except they’re expensive, and not everything goes well with them, so I wear other things too).
    Moroccan food – I had conjured unjustified notions of baked beetles and cow brain, until I went to this Moroccan joint and it practically opened the veil between worlds for me.
    The beach – The first time I went was when I was a kid. I grew up in Iowa, so Newport and Huntington were on par with Avalon. I went a couple of times, and each time I was less and less impressed. Then one week I went to Puerto Pinasco, Mexico, and it was like I could truly breathe for the first time.
    I fell in love with these things so much that I began contouring my career goals to them. My dream job is to wear linen pants while eating Moroccan food on a beach, somewhere along the Indian Ocean. The Indian Ocean part I added on my own – it’s a personal quirk.
    • Craig 06. Oct, 2010 at 3:25 pm #
      Also, Europe bummed me out. Meaning, my first overseas trip was to Beijing in the summer of 2009. It was crazy. I went in the middle of swine flu season, there was a COMPLETE language breakdown, and I ate the weirdest stuff – like fried scorpion and duck foot jello. Even the visa process was problematic!
      So three months later I flew to Prague, and it was so easy it was depressing. You just show up with your passport, get scowled at by a French customs official (point of entry was Paris), and off you go. No quarantine scare, the food was identifiable, and half the city speaks English. I got depressed because it was actually a little boring. Crazy, huh?
      • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:19 pm #
        Why do my replies pop up in odd places? Craig–see below.
      • Kahalia 06. Oct, 2010 at 10:17 pm #
        @Craig, Drama King!
        • Craig 06. Oct, 2010 at 11:38 pm #
          lololololol
    • K 06. Oct, 2010 at 4:52 pm #
      You could be a travel book writer, or a tour guide, or…
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:13 pm #
      OK. LOVE linen–there’s something so satisfying as putting on a classic piece of rumpled linen and thinking smugly as you walk past the iron “It’s supposed to look like this.”
      Morroccan food–one of my all time favorites, made even better by the fact that you get to eat it with your hands! (I’m a tactile person) I also love the use of cinnamon in savory dishes. YUM!
      Beach=happiness.
      Is it possible that we are long lost siblings, Craig? I’m going to ask my mom . . .
      • Craig 06. Oct, 2010 at 11:33 pm #
        well, almost 40 years ago my mom spent some time in a Catholic convent (she left the nunery about 6 months before her vows). While the Carmelites remembered her well, those years are, for all intents and purposes, unaccounted for…
        • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 11:55 pm #
          Ooooh, I love a good family scandal . . .
  9. K 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:09 pm #
    On the topic of today, a line from an email my mother just sent me: “Anything called perfection is down the drain anyway–which means that maybe perfection will happen–of its own accord.”
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 6:20 pm #
      I like your mom :)
  10. amanda 06. Oct, 2010 at 8:33 pm #
    What an awesome train of thought. Love this. Richard likes to talk about how pigs dressed up in fancy clothes are still just pigs. He resists hype with tooth and nail. Btw, I loved Boy’s Life as a tween. LOVED.
    • Jerie 06. Oct, 2010 at 9:42 pm #
      Of course you did–Boys’ Life was da bomb. Just one of the reasons I longed to be a boy for most of my childhood.
  11. Robbie 07. Oct, 2010 at 9:29 am #
    I ordered everything imaginable from the back of Boys’ Life. Hand-shake shocker, X-Ray glasses, whoopee cushions, sea monkeys, etc. But the one that made me want to write a letter at the age of eight was something called “Throw Your Voice.” The picture had a kid hiding behind a door saying, “Hey you!” And a confused man looking around in the wrong direction. I was intrigued, coughed up the two bucks (plus shipping, as you appropriately point out–fifty cents extra is a big deal to an eight-year-old), and waited anxiously, checking the mail every day, several times a day. I would come home from school eager to find out how to throw my voice, imagining all the pranks I could play on my teachers, my friends, my family. I imagined hiding in the bathroom and throwing my voice into the kitchen, startling my mom. I was going to throw it to the other side of the classroom and get Adam in trouble. My mouth watered with anticipation. When it came, I tore into the envelope (think Ralphie with the decoder) to find . . . a three page booklet about ventriloquism. No joke. I think I gave it away that day.
    But, like you say, this life takes my breath away every day. It is the everyday that is most underrated, but most likely to shine like transfiguration. Oliver’s smile, Lydia’s stories, Emerson’s energy. Julie’s goodness. Fall rain. Classrooms of teenagers trying to figure things out, and every once in a while succeeding. Life.

    • Jerie 07. Oct, 2010 at 10:08 pm #
      Would you just write my next post? You get it. And then you say it beautifully. Thanks.
  12. Julie 07. Oct, 2010 at 12:30 pm #
    Monterey for our five year anniversary. Growing up taking day trips there all the time, I never could have imagined how dreamy it would be to spend a weekend there with the love of my life. So romantic.
    • Jerie 07. Oct, 2010 at 10:10 pm #
      Awwww! Everything is better with the love of your life at your side, huh? So when area you going again and can I have the kids !?!?!
  13. Katie 07. Oct, 2010 at 2:23 pm #
    Denmark is reported to contain the happiest people in the world. The reason, they discovered, was because the people do not have overly great expectations. In contrast to the U.S. mentality that all must own a home, drive a car, have a flat screen t.v., etc. the Danes just enjoy each day at a time — striving for a different type of excellence. Time with family, time with friends instead of excessive time working to buy things they are supposed to need for societal survival. Once conclusion made: “with lower expectations we’re never disappointed.” I love that attitude and the opportunity if creates to truly enjoy the simplest, yet richest blessings we have.
    If you have an extra 12 minutes, the news report about my favorite place on earth is below.

    Thanks for the post.
    • Jerie 07. Oct, 2010 at 10:13 pm #
      I love this, Katie. So interesting. (Easy to love something that backs up your own ideas, huh? :) The way we define quality of life seems to make all the difference. I’m with the Danes on this one.





Originally posted on The Peanut Gallery Speaks.  http://www.peanutgalleryspeaks.com/2010/10/marginally-great-expectations/
Posted by at
Labels:

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)