Expectations / For Ben

Despite being only able to live one life, there is always a need to listen to other opinions, or more accurately, to look to others for guidance or direction. There are many who inspire and motivate, but the constant reliance on such things can perhaps hinder a person's true potential.

Expectations play such a big role in the determination of a person's well-being, insofar that it can really crush someone if it's met with failure. It's a delicious drug that we all anchor towards in some way and like a drug, the quick solution withers into an unstable foundation for long-term aspirations.

Such things are placed on all societies, I think, as they all have developed socialised norms and mores. However, societies as plural means just that. There isn't just one and therefore, more perspectives and ways of thinking are apparent. This is certain. The reassuring supplement with expectations is the necessary disclaimer of a non-guarantee. You cannot live another person's life, you cannot live attached to rules devised by minds other than yours absolutely. You cannot live. You are an individual and a culmination of many perspectives that guide you and ultimately make you who you are.

The gratitude that I have for your existence is immeasurable, as it has shaped my life in some form since the moment of our meeting. Although everyone we meet in our lives affects us, there is a reason why we still remain friends. And there is a reason why things are the way they are. We are not nothing.

It is difficult to fight through the perception of societal success, but it simply cannot speak for you and you alone. Neither of us are great, but neither of us are failures too, because the criteria doesn't exist. What we expect to be good might be completely misguided and warrants no integrity to ourselves, our perspectives.

We can never expect anything and whatever happens can be such a surprise. Who knew that 10 years ago we'd be in Tokyo for Infected Mushroom. I certainly didn't expect it in school. Nor did I expect to be living here 10 years ago. As such, expectations are sometimes bribes for empty solutions, and the unexpected may be rich in beautiful, priceless rewards.