Raise your expectations for this one!

Are your expectations high yet? K raise them a bit more. You are in for a treat. Here we go!

If you have been here before, you should know not to have high expectations of my writing or what you find here so the first mistake is on you.

I've thought about writing a post about this but unsure how to tackle it. It is something I believe strongly in but sort of hard to explain and you might disagree. To summarize my opinion is that I think having expectations isn't the best way to live our lives. So I pretty much tricked you. Second mistake. 

I think having expectations about a place or destination isn't good. I can see having expectations in people but also don't think this is the proper course to take.

Let's go through a scenario that I experienced. I was in New Haven, Connecticut for my cousin Shelly's wedding. Super cool, had kegs of beer, oven pizza-mobile that turned into a gelato machine. Looked something like this.

Success. After the wedding I explored the area close to the hotel where my family was staying. Go to a few places, have one beer and start to head home. As is the case when you end a night, I was hungry. Walked by a few pizza places, nothing caught my eye. I ask someone on the street where a good place to grab some food is. He points me in a direction and tells me to turn right. Turn right, got it. Walk down the street a bit, make a hard right and 30 seconds later I am standing outside a small, hobbit like establishment with a line of people outside the door. Ask someone standing outside what the deal was, told me that they sell incredible hamburgers inside and is worth the wait. I have nowhere to go, I wait. Wait maybe 30 minutes, maybe less. Once inside, it is a super tiny, with only a handful of tables, some sort of hamburger cooking device from possibly the 1930's. To say the place had character would be a tad of an understatement. On some of the tables had carvings imprinted in them from college students long gone and quite possibly dead. Their menu was very basic and could only order a few items. So grabbed 2 hamburgers and they were unbelievable. Well, I only ate one, a homeless guy hustled me out of my other one, then asked me for $10.

Essentially, my expectations for that meal were non-existent. I was happy to just to get food and turned out to be one of the birthplaces of the hamburger. This fact is apparently disputed and I don't really understand it. It is one of the first places to sell hamburgers in the world. And I ate there by accident and I remember it to this day. No expectations. Check it out if this interests you:

http://www.louislunch.com/history.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamburger

Have you ever noticed how New Year's usually isn't very fun and that it is is filled with drama and disappointment? It can be fun and isn't all bad but for the most part the celebration doesn't meet the expectation. Maybe that is because we start talking about New Year's in October or even earlier. I bet someone reading this right now already has New Year's plans.  Our expectations are sky high.

The downside to having no expectations is that people like to get excited, helps them get through the day and allows them to daydream. I'm not saying having a negative attitude is the key; it's good to have fun/new things to look forward to but for me I like to take it one day at at time. Tomorrow will get here soon enough. If today wasn't good, tomorrow will probably even it out. And if tomorrow isn't good, the next day will. Call it cautious optimism.

Do what you like, this is only my philosophy, feel free to tell me what you think. Enjoy your week everyone, should have a post within the next week about my plans for the rest of 2013. Oh and have fun watching the Super Bowl, eating great food and drinking water, good thing people don't have high expectations for the game.....

Here are two more articles about expectations if you want to read more:

http://zenhabits.net/light/

http://www.nomadicmatt.com/travel-blogs/expectations/

"There is a difference between expectations and aspirations" Alex Kapranos.