Last week at work my
shift colleagues and I were considering what the day may bring, when one of my
colleagues spoke out in unusual confidence, stating that we were going to have
a good day. I couldn't help but warn him, "Don't say that," but an
odd thing happened, the day did actually go pretty well. The weird thing about
this? It showed that ultimately what we say doesn't really have any power over
anything.
Why is this a big
deal to me? Ever since I was young I learned not to boast about what I might or
might not do, for fear of the worst happening. In recent years that has only
increased, to the point where I wonder why my colleagues ask what I have planned
for my days off. Nothing is set in stone any more, I'm always gearing for the
worst, or at least attempting to. Sometimes even your worst projections don't
cover all eventualities, or worse still, you're completely blindsided by what
has taken place.
What is the worst
case scenario that people talk about? How about the numerous people, who have
recounted to us for years about how they didn't receive support while their
children grew up, lost a home, encountered health problems due to overworking
to meet commitments, etc. Are they wishing this on us? Of course not, but as
soon as someone mentions it I end up thinking, "Well, that's obviously
going to happen to us." Does it have to be this way? Certainly not. To I
expect all the worst case scenarios to become reality? Yes. Does that make
sense? No.
Although I don't
think it is really talked about, you reach points in your life where you
realise that you still have a lot to learn. Part of me thinks, "I'm 38, I
should have everything figured out by now," although I clearly don't. I'm
really just coming to realise that at the moment I'm a strange blend of
pessimist and fatalist, where I expect things to go wrong and just accept that
I can't change them. When it comes to other people, I can't change them, but
when it comes to myself, my family, and things which I may not be able to
altogether control but may have an opportunity to influence, then I owe it to
myself to do everything I can to seek the best for my family.
Some of the issues
that I see at work on a daily basis are brought about by expectancies. These
come in all manner of forms, the expectancy that a service will break, that a
team member may call up and ask for a holiday, or even the self-expectancy that
I expect better performance from myself. What is the expectancy I have from
life? That things are bad, that they will continue to be bad and that they
won't get better. And so I come back to the lifelong battle I've had with my
parents, where they exhort me to "think positive" and I wonder what
the justification is for seeing anything positive on the horizon. Even then,
every once in a while something positive does come along, even a pessimist like
me sees that. The difficulty is in making changes to make positive events more
frequent.
One of the changes I
am going to need to make is to pay less attention to others. When I think about
career options I consider what my in-laws will think. When my kids aren't happy
I consider what other parents might think. When thinking about what I'm doing
with my days off I think about what my colleagues will think about what I'm
doing, and whether or not they think my life is boring/miserable/dull? I need to be
less considerate of a lot of people, and actually put myself and my family
first more often. Will everyone like it? I suspect not. Does it hopefully mean
a better future for myself and my family? I hope so. Will all be plain sailing?
Almost certainly not, but eventually we'll get there, in one form or another.
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