As we grow up our expectations change. If we’re privileged enough, our expectations for the world get higher. We begin to expect more from our friends, our family, and our relationships. This post is not about any of that however and is more focused on the emotional side of setting your expectations too high.
I had an appointment today to get a tattoo done in honor of my favorite artist of all time, Ariana Grande. The appointment was set up months in advance and of course I was anxiously counting down the days as soon as there was one week left. The day of, three hours before the appointment, the tattoo artist tells me that something came up and she won’t be able to make the appointment.
I felt angry, annoyed and a part of me felt lied to. I took it personal even though it wasn’t. For about 30 min I was deciding how to actually feel about it. Should I let it ruin my day? Should I be petty and reschedule an appointment with another artist? I could already feel the sulkiness starting to take place in my body and I was almost prepared to stay in my bed and stay mad at the world. I had cleared my schedule for this appointment and had nothing else planned after all.
As I was sitting there being melodramatic, I ended up deciding that maybe this was a good thing. The appointment was going to take place all the way downtown around rush hour so I would be there pretty late and I had even complained to my best friend about it the night before. I decided that although I expected getting my tattoo done would be the highlight of my day, I could move on with my day in a more productive way.
Im glad I took the time to sort out my emotions and set my expectations aside in order to have a happy productive day that I almost wasted. I was able to edit and upload my first podcast episode and youtube video in a while and it was an awesome feeling to finally be uploading content again. It definitely became the highlight of my day.
Although I did expect my tattoo to be the only thing I looked forward to that day, not getting it done helped me learn to manage my expectations and my emotions a little bit better. I’m starting to agree more and more that there is lessons to be found in everything we do or in this case don’t do, and its nice to be open minded enough to learn and grow from those lessons.
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