I've been thinking about expectations, and how they shape our perception of—well, of everything.
(I touched on expectations here once before. Here I go again.)
We spent a long weekend in Cape May, NJ, and arrived home this past Sunday evening. It was nice to get away, the town was as beautiful as always, we climbed lighthouse steps and rode in a horse-drawn carriage and visited a Civil War village and ate far too much food that someone else had prepared and consequently cleaned up. It was fun.
But the weather mostly stunk. We knew, thanks to internet weather reports, that an unseasonable cold snap was expected, both here and there. We packed jackets, and rain coats, and umbrellas. And we didn't use them the whole time, but we did use them a significant portion of the time. We squeezed in some beach fun, but we also spent time looking longingly, through mist and raindrops and wind, at the nearly inhospitable shore. I fumed a bit on the drive home, felt sorry for myself, composed various blog posts with silly titles such as 'Scuse Me while I Curse the Sky... (I kid you not.)
Yet, the weekend was nice, and relaxing, and trouble-free. Even the rides there and back weren't bad. The newly purchased used car ran like a champ, we saw mountains, and Amish buggies, and rolling hills with barns tucked neatly within. We neatly avoided Philly at rush hour. Whew.
So what was lacking? Not much. Some sunshine, some warmer temperatures, I guess—I was expecting air temps to match the water temps (upper 70s) as they normally do in mid-September. (The water was great; the air, not so.) And there's the problem word: expecting. I was anticipating a certain type of visit, and we didn't have it. So now I feel disenchanted, disappointed, cheated of what should have been a warm, balmy weekend. But why? We're all humans living on this changeable orb. We know, by now, that weather is not a sure thing in any direction. We know that it isn't always sunny at the beach. Yet still, there's this pervasive feeling of discontentment in my gut.
Expectations can get us into trouble emotionally. If I'm learning any lesson consistently and repeatedly, it's that I need to expect less from life. I need to stop expecting good weather, uncomplicated days, and excellent health. I need to stop expecting people to be good, and thoughtful, and unselfish. I need to remember which world I'm currently inhabiting, and start living with more appreciation for the many times when things actually do go well and I ride the wave of relative ease of living. Truly, for most of us these days, life is pretty easy. We have so many gadgets, countless conveniences, comforts, and abundance, that it seems we've lost sight of the harsh reality that there's still so much we can't control.
Like the weather at the beach.
So, I need to turn my foolish little expectations on their heads. Let's see what that looks like:
I'm so glad that a hurricane didn't hit land while we were there! I'm so thankful that our tire didn't fall off en route and roll down a mountainside. I'm so happy that the horse pulling our Cape May carriage was obedient and stopped at the light instead of rolling through the busy intersection or charging a pedestrian. I'm really delighted that Marcus's slight cold didn't turn into a full-fledged illness with fever and chills. I'm very relieved that no one mugged me because this was one of the few times each year when I actually had cash in my purse. I'm thankful that I was blessed enough to have my own great little family to accompany me on this drizzly escapade.
There. That wasn't so hard, was it? No. It wasn't. We aren't perfect. Life isn't perfect. It's good, but not perfect. And that's okay. I can hope for better weather next time, but I need to steer clear of "why, why, woe unto us."
It was fun. And the last positive spin? All that cold wetness made it much easier to depart on the final day. Here's to realistic expectations, and nurturing a grateful heart.
Showing posts with label expectations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label expectations. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Friday, June 3, 2011
Not-so-great expectations
Earlier this week, after the kid was sleeping, the husband and I sat down to chat about what sort of house we'd like to find. We are sort of looking, now that we've been pre-approved for the loan, but we aren't finding our dream or anything that even resembles it. And we don't have a lot of time to take advantage of the window of opportunity that summer permits.
Just like any house hunters, we have a little list in our heads of all the must-haves, followed closely by the nice-to-haves. What seems to occur, though, is that as I look at what's really, truly available on the market and in our price range, I start to adjust my happy little list. My husband, however, does not.
I suppose it could be a matter of faith. If we trust God to deliver what we need, then the right house will either pop up or it won't. If we're meant to move, then the place will be in the right location, the right distance from town, the right school. I shouldn't need to fret about any of it. And honestly, I'm not fretting. I like where we live. If I didn't dislike close neighbors, yappy dogs, loud vehicles, and bus traffic, and if I didn't still believe that our society is doomed to collapse pretty darned soon, then I'd just sit tight here and be thankful for what we have. I really am thankful; it's a great place.
My actual conundrum is the fact that I am a giver-upper. I don't cling to ideals. I don't cling to anything. I am as changeable as a June weather system. In the midst of our lively conversation (translation: rather hostile volley of words), it became clear to me that my husband thinks I am a bit of a flibbertegibbet. That I hurry through things, longing more to finish and accomplish the task than to do it well.
The reason that hurt was because he's right. And he is the exact opposite, painstakingly researching, studying, sketching, idealizing (IMHO, of course) before even approaching the road to be taken. Which is why he's better at doing home projects, why he's superior at remodels, why the garden that he built last year looks so nice.
The problem is that other than that garden, I'm usually the driving force behind major changes in our lives. And remember, the garden came to be when I went back to work for that awful year of dad-stays-at-home-with-the-boy. It was a matter of survival, and we got through it, but by no means was I the only one going crazy. I think the garden helped my spouse to make it through the year.
I stand firm that we may not have gotten married yet, let alone purchased any homes, if I hadn't been my flibbertegibbet self and gotten the silly notion in my head about the importance of emotional commitment and then property ownership. We may not even have a child yet. Well, we might have gotten around to that, since I am married to a man. 'Nuf said.
I don't mean to expose too much insider information here; that's not what this blog is supposed to be about. I guess I am just wondering where other people stand on ideals and must-haves. Is the rest of the world as movable and wishy-washy as I am, because it's necessary to bend your own rules sometimes? Is it right to expect to find exactly the right thing? Does stepping away a little bit mean that you're giving up? That you don't have enough faith in God to deliver? Or is it just a healthy realization that adults can't wear rose-colored glasses and still reach goals?
I was reading another blog, written by a woman who'd lost a child suddenly, and she commented that some of the best advice she received was simply that as time goes by, you expect less. You don't expect to ever feel the same way that you did when your child was living. You don't expect, anymore, to see her sweet face in the morning. You don't expect others to understand your suffering. You lower your expectations. And I fear that perhaps, on a much more shallow level, that's what I've begun to do with my life.
Things don't go as you'd hoped with your home, your family, the economy, and you adjust your expectations. Jobs are lost, and once again you re-set your list of what you'd been ready to experience. Relationships disappoint, people let you down, you don't set the world on fire by 30... and all along, you are constantly rewriting that list in your mind.
Did I just describe most people? Or only myself? How firmly should we stick to that list we made? Is saving considerable money worth giving up on a lot of what you'd hoped to find? And would anyone ever do anything if they waited for the list to be completely fulfilled?
Too many questions, I know. But I welcome your feedback.
-Pessimist Mel
Just like any house hunters, we have a little list in our heads of all the must-haves, followed closely by the nice-to-haves. What seems to occur, though, is that as I look at what's really, truly available on the market and in our price range, I start to adjust my happy little list. My husband, however, does not.
I suppose it could be a matter of faith. If we trust God to deliver what we need, then the right house will either pop up or it won't. If we're meant to move, then the place will be in the right location, the right distance from town, the right school. I shouldn't need to fret about any of it. And honestly, I'm not fretting. I like where we live. If I didn't dislike close neighbors, yappy dogs, loud vehicles, and bus traffic, and if I didn't still believe that our society is doomed to collapse pretty darned soon, then I'd just sit tight here and be thankful for what we have. I really am thankful; it's a great place.
My actual conundrum is the fact that I am a giver-upper. I don't cling to ideals. I don't cling to anything. I am as changeable as a June weather system. In the midst of our lively conversation (translation: rather hostile volley of words), it became clear to me that my husband thinks I am a bit of a flibbertegibbet. That I hurry through things, longing more to finish and accomplish the task than to do it well.
The reason that hurt was because he's right. And he is the exact opposite, painstakingly researching, studying, sketching, idealizing (IMHO, of course) before even approaching the road to be taken. Which is why he's better at doing home projects, why he's superior at remodels, why the garden that he built last year looks so nice.
The problem is that other than that garden, I'm usually the driving force behind major changes in our lives. And remember, the garden came to be when I went back to work for that awful year of dad-stays-at-home-with-the-boy. It was a matter of survival, and we got through it, but by no means was I the only one going crazy. I think the garden helped my spouse to make it through the year.
I stand firm that we may not have gotten married yet, let alone purchased any homes, if I hadn't been my flibbertegibbet self and gotten the silly notion in my head about the importance of emotional commitment and then property ownership. We may not even have a child yet. Well, we might have gotten around to that, since I am married to a man. 'Nuf said.
I don't mean to expose too much insider information here; that's not what this blog is supposed to be about. I guess I am just wondering where other people stand on ideals and must-haves. Is the rest of the world as movable and wishy-washy as I am, because it's necessary to bend your own rules sometimes? Is it right to expect to find exactly the right thing? Does stepping away a little bit mean that you're giving up? That you don't have enough faith in God to deliver? Or is it just a healthy realization that adults can't wear rose-colored glasses and still reach goals?
I was reading another blog, written by a woman who'd lost a child suddenly, and she commented that some of the best advice she received was simply that as time goes by, you expect less. You don't expect to ever feel the same way that you did when your child was living. You don't expect, anymore, to see her sweet face in the morning. You don't expect others to understand your suffering. You lower your expectations. And I fear that perhaps, on a much more shallow level, that's what I've begun to do with my life.
Things don't go as you'd hoped with your home, your family, the economy, and you adjust your expectations. Jobs are lost, and once again you re-set your list of what you'd been ready to experience. Relationships disappoint, people let you down, you don't set the world on fire by 30... and all along, you are constantly rewriting that list in your mind.
Did I just describe most people? Or only myself? How firmly should we stick to that list we made? Is saving considerable money worth giving up on a lot of what you'd hoped to find? And would anyone ever do anything if they waited for the list to be completely fulfilled?
Too many questions, I know. But I welcome your feedback.
-Pessimist Mel
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
No one is KISSing these days
warning: rant to follow, which may or may not be caused by the fact that I had to pick up my son's kindergarten registration papers this week
KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. I think I learned that approach to delivering information while I was teaching school years ago, and by golly, it continues to be more useful every day. When I remember to keep it simple, I am never sorry. People have short attention spans that grow shorter every day, they are accustomed to quick changes of pace and lots of pretty graphics and shallow information... we've all been groomed of late to be ADHD, it seems. So keeping information simple just makes sense.
But honestly, I always thought that keeping it simple just made sense. Why do more than necessary? Why confuse people when you needn't? Although I've been out of the field of education until recently, now I find myself on the fringes of that whole strange world of imparting knowledge—and I am so disappointed in the way it has plummeted since I left.
In the hoity-toity districts north of our fair city, now there is often no lower option that pre-algebra in 7th grade. Huh?! Are all the 7th graders of the area ready for pre-algebra in 7th grade? I think not. Was I? Doubtful, although I must have been introduced to the concepts at that age all those years ago because I was, indeed, taking algebra in 8th grade. Which led to my near-demise in 9th grade geometry...but that's another story. Seriously, though, it's not just the higher maths that are being pushed. I have recently assisted at least five 9th and 10th graders in nearby school districts, all of them average students, all of them saddled with full-tilt research papers that include rubrics and point breakdowns and lists of requirements that I honestly feel are more appropriate for honors English juniors and seniors, if that.
People. Our public education systems stink. We are falling behind every other modern country I can think of. Yet we insist on pushing our students harder, faster, sooner than before. It's not working. Just because you call every student gifted will not make it so. Even worse, this push for higher-level thinking at an earlier age has resulted in the near-abandonment of the basics. Apparently, the basics are just not flashy enough for us to press upon many students. Times tables? Pshaw. Just use your calculator. Subject-verb agreement? That's why we have Microsoft Word, isn't it?! And spelling... don't even get me started.
I feel sick when I attempt to help a student with the basics and see how that student has slipped through the cracks. I am equally sick as I walk a kid who doesn't know a run-on sentence when it slaps him to maneuver his awkward, fumbling way through a research paper full of citations and defenses. Where is the KISS method these days? Why are we teaching advanced MLA research methods to 9th graders who are barely passing their classes? Why must the entire world be groomed for college? What is wrong with trades, with labor, with jobs that will NEVER require any serious knowledge of algebraic substitutions and pi and a works cited page and gerunds?
We are all getting so damned clever that no one knows how to tie his shoes, let alone read a clock with a face, and it's making me want to retreat to a homestead in Alaska.
When I taught English, so long ago, I was encouraged by my district to attend the annual Pennsylvania state writing assessment scoring seminars. I forget the actual title of those assemblies, but they were filled with local PA English teachers who had volunteered to come assess real writing samples of students. We were all gathered together, then taught a 6-point scoring rubric, and lastly we graded papers. And we graded more papers. Then, we graded some papers. But my point is this: the vast majority of the time, we all agreed within one point on the appropriate score for a given writing sample. We'd been taught how to do it, we applied the knowledge, and we all could identify "good" writing. We knew when the piece was effective, when it had succeeded. We did not require fancy grading systems or long, drawn-out explanations of what we should identify as high quality. We came to recognize it very quickly, all of us. There was by and large agreement. We knew with very little training when the writing worked and when it didn't.
So, why all the complications now? Why the complexities? Most of the students I see would benefit greatly from a huge helping of common sense in their teachers. Most of these kids today need to know how to figure out the most basic mathematical problem, percentages, division problems. They need to be able to express themselves on paper, clearly and concisely. They need to learn clarity and the value of a well-turned, grammatically correct phrase. They would benefit greatly from more practice making a simple point, an opinion even, with accuracy and skill. They would be better for having learned to crack a book instead of searching endlessly through feeble online resources. Few will ever require the ridiculous level of detail and pomp that is already being asked of them in their first year of high school.
For goodness sake, what is wrong with people? I want America to be smart and educated, too—but mostly I want the kids today to be able to hold a conversation without a *!?#@ cell phone in their hands. It would be a bonus if their end of the conversation made sense and consisted of lucid thoughts expressed in complete sentences.
I'm not down on the kids, honestly. I think we've steered them wrong by pushing them to do too much, too soon. Let's start with tying shoes, then move onto clocks that are round, and after that we'll divvy up pieces of pizza and talk about fractions. We must, we simply must, give these children of ours a real foundation for learning—the type of learning that will enable logical problem-solving when they grow up.
Because then, you see, they'll have to figure out a way to pay that fool Obama's bill.
KISS stands for Keep It Simple, Stupid. I think I learned that approach to delivering information while I was teaching school years ago, and by golly, it continues to be more useful every day. When I remember to keep it simple, I am never sorry. People have short attention spans that grow shorter every day, they are accustomed to quick changes of pace and lots of pretty graphics and shallow information... we've all been groomed of late to be ADHD, it seems. So keeping information simple just makes sense.
But honestly, I always thought that keeping it simple just made sense. Why do more than necessary? Why confuse people when you needn't? Although I've been out of the field of education until recently, now I find myself on the fringes of that whole strange world of imparting knowledge—and I am so disappointed in the way it has plummeted since I left.
In the hoity-toity districts north of our fair city, now there is often no lower option that pre-algebra in 7th grade. Huh?! Are all the 7th graders of the area ready for pre-algebra in 7th grade? I think not. Was I? Doubtful, although I must have been introduced to the concepts at that age all those years ago because I was, indeed, taking algebra in 8th grade. Which led to my near-demise in 9th grade geometry...but that's another story. Seriously, though, it's not just the higher maths that are being pushed. I have recently assisted at least five 9th and 10th graders in nearby school districts, all of them average students, all of them saddled with full-tilt research papers that include rubrics and point breakdowns and lists of requirements that I honestly feel are more appropriate for honors English juniors and seniors, if that.
People. Our public education systems stink. We are falling behind every other modern country I can think of. Yet we insist on pushing our students harder, faster, sooner than before. It's not working. Just because you call every student gifted will not make it so. Even worse, this push for higher-level thinking at an earlier age has resulted in the near-abandonment of the basics. Apparently, the basics are just not flashy enough for us to press upon many students. Times tables? Pshaw. Just use your calculator. Subject-verb agreement? That's why we have Microsoft Word, isn't it?! And spelling... don't even get me started.
I feel sick when I attempt to help a student with the basics and see how that student has slipped through the cracks. I am equally sick as I walk a kid who doesn't know a run-on sentence when it slaps him to maneuver his awkward, fumbling way through a research paper full of citations and defenses. Where is the KISS method these days? Why are we teaching advanced MLA research methods to 9th graders who are barely passing their classes? Why must the entire world be groomed for college? What is wrong with trades, with labor, with jobs that will NEVER require any serious knowledge of algebraic substitutions and pi and a works cited page and gerunds?
We are all getting so damned clever that no one knows how to tie his shoes, let alone read a clock with a face, and it's making me want to retreat to a homestead in Alaska.
When I taught English, so long ago, I was encouraged by my district to attend the annual Pennsylvania state writing assessment scoring seminars. I forget the actual title of those assemblies, but they were filled with local PA English teachers who had volunteered to come assess real writing samples of students. We were all gathered together, then taught a 6-point scoring rubric, and lastly we graded papers. And we graded more papers. Then, we graded some papers. But my point is this: the vast majority of the time, we all agreed within one point on the appropriate score for a given writing sample. We'd been taught how to do it, we applied the knowledge, and we all could identify "good" writing. We knew when the piece was effective, when it had succeeded. We did not require fancy grading systems or long, drawn-out explanations of what we should identify as high quality. We came to recognize it very quickly, all of us. There was by and large agreement. We knew with very little training when the writing worked and when it didn't.
So, why all the complications now? Why the complexities? Most of the students I see would benefit greatly from a huge helping of common sense in their teachers. Most of these kids today need to know how to figure out the most basic mathematical problem, percentages, division problems. They need to be able to express themselves on paper, clearly and concisely. They need to learn clarity and the value of a well-turned, grammatically correct phrase. They would benefit greatly from more practice making a simple point, an opinion even, with accuracy and skill. They would be better for having learned to crack a book instead of searching endlessly through feeble online resources. Few will ever require the ridiculous level of detail and pomp that is already being asked of them in their first year of high school.
For goodness sake, what is wrong with people? I want America to be smart and educated, too—but mostly I want the kids today to be able to hold a conversation without a *!?#@ cell phone in their hands. It would be a bonus if their end of the conversation made sense and consisted of lucid thoughts expressed in complete sentences.
I'm not down on the kids, honestly. I think we've steered them wrong by pushing them to do too much, too soon. Let's start with tying shoes, then move onto clocks that are round, and after that we'll divvy up pieces of pizza and talk about fractions. We must, we simply must, give these children of ours a real foundation for learning—the type of learning that will enable logical problem-solving when they grow up.
Because then, you see, they'll have to figure out a way to pay that fool Obama's bill.
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