The grass is always greener... (part 1 of 2)
I've been thinking about what to write in this entry for several hours now. Essentially last night, a friend of mine who was in town was too hammered to go home and so he crashed in my living room. We landed up talking for a long time. and when I say talking, we weren't just bulshitting, we were in serious deep discussion about everything from life, work, personal lives, psychology, philosophy and all that kind of stuff which you may not expect too many inebriated individuals to be discussing.
The topics ran the gamut and our tangents often became whole discussions in themselves making it increasingly taxing on our minds to unravel the stack to figure out how we got somewhere in the first place. Now, the details of what we talked about are "out-of-bounds" for this entry or any entry on a public blog for that matter. (the vagueness creeps back...), but I will write a little about some of the realizations.
Perception is reality. What you percieve is real for you. You cannot know any other reality than what you percieve (have I said the same thing over enough times yet? ... did it hit home?). But what I've realized and what I hope others can realize is that things may not always be what they seem. In one of the many books I read recently (I did a great job of remembering the things I liked from the readings, but a pathetic job of keeping a bibliography or any references, sorry... in future, I'll be more careful and probably post a list of my readings... well at least the non-sensitive ones!) it talked about how the exact same circumstance/environment creates a completely different experience for each person. It is your own personal experience, which need not be the same as what anybody else felt under the same circumstances.
So the point I'm trying to make and not doing a good job of being succint about it, is that the same circumstances may be a completely different effect on different people. And Assumption is the mother of all f...ups... so to assume that your experience is universally applicable is probably not going to work to your advantage in the long run. Of couse, all the experiences are subjective, but it would behoove one to at least attempt to try and validate the assumptions before jumping to any conclusions. Give the benefit of the doubt. You may see things differently.
Another quote which keeps coming back a lot is the one about expectation is the first step to disappointment. This is a hard one. In fact, all of this stuff is because there are very few absolutes... that coming from a person who is most comfortable in dealing with zeros and ones, means a lot. It is easier to talk about this than to practice it. And I myself am probably guilty of not being able to practice what I preach 100% of the time.
Expectations surround us. Whether they are from friends, family, parents, work, school and most of all from ourselves.... or better said, as our perceptions of what is expected of us by others. Again, that is a perceived result which very often hasn't been validated at all and so we land up subjecting ourselves to a mental torture of trying to live up to perceived expectations. Both internal and external. This reminded me of a quote I had in the old quotes file (available in quote archives)...
Now, I do not mean to sounds solipsistic or selfish, but isn't that just a recipe for making yourself miserable? Living based on what you perceive others to expect of you!? Wouldn't it be more pragmatic to at some point realize that you are the only person who can do anything about how you feel and the only person you need to be accountable to is yourself. (that implicitly covers doing things for other people since if you didn't you wouldn't be happy with yourself right!?)
But what can someone who is caught in the expectation rut do? What happens when it runs so deep that it starts becoming a borderline phobia undermining your own self-esteem? That's a dangerous state to be in.
The topics ran the gamut and our tangents often became whole discussions in themselves making it increasingly taxing on our minds to unravel the stack to figure out how we got somewhere in the first place. Now, the details of what we talked about are "out-of-bounds" for this entry or any entry on a public blog for that matter. (the vagueness creeps back...), but I will write a little about some of the realizations.
Perception is reality. What you percieve is real for you. You cannot know any other reality than what you percieve (have I said the same thing over enough times yet? ... did it hit home?). But what I've realized and what I hope others can realize is that things may not always be what they seem. In one of the many books I read recently (I did a great job of remembering the things I liked from the readings, but a pathetic job of keeping a bibliography or any references, sorry... in future, I'll be more careful and probably post a list of my readings... well at least the non-sensitive ones!) it talked about how the exact same circumstance/environment creates a completely different experience for each person. It is your own personal experience, which need not be the same as what anybody else felt under the same circumstances.
So the point I'm trying to make and not doing a good job of being succint about it, is that the same circumstances may be a completely different effect on different people. And Assumption is the mother of all f...ups... so to assume that your experience is universally applicable is probably not going to work to your advantage in the long run. Of couse, all the experiences are subjective, but it would behoove one to at least attempt to try and validate the assumptions before jumping to any conclusions. Give the benefit of the doubt. You may see things differently.
Another quote which keeps coming back a lot is the one about expectation is the first step to disappointment. This is a hard one. In fact, all of this stuff is because there are very few absolutes... that coming from a person who is most comfortable in dealing with zeros and ones, means a lot. It is easier to talk about this than to practice it. And I myself am probably guilty of not being able to practice what I preach 100% of the time.
Expectations surround us. Whether they are from friends, family, parents, work, school and most of all from ourselves.... or better said, as our perceptions of what is expected of us by others. Again, that is a perceived result which very often hasn't been validated at all and so we land up subjecting ourselves to a mental torture of trying to live up to perceived expectations. Both internal and external. This reminded me of a quote I had in the old quotes file (available in quote archives)...
...and no taskmaster is harsher than one's own self-expectations.
...Tom Clancy in the Red Storm Rising
Now, I do not mean to sounds solipsistic or selfish, but isn't that just a recipe for making yourself miserable? Living based on what you perceive others to expect of you!? Wouldn't it be more pragmatic to at some point realize that you are the only person who can do anything about how you feel and the only person you need to be accountable to is yourself. (that implicitly covers doing things for other people since if you didn't you wouldn't be happy with yourself right!?)
But what can someone who is caught in the expectation rut do? What happens when it runs so deep that it starts becoming a borderline phobia undermining your own self-esteem? That's a dangerous state to be in.
posted by sneaker @ 1:45 PM
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