A Looking Glass

“My father always used to say, you know…‘mind the gap.’”
“I don’t know.”
“It’s just the distance between life as you dream it...and…life as it is.”

Let me just begin this blog entry by stating that I should not be writing this right now. I woke up this morning with the full intention of reading countless pages of my Spec Mind book…but, hey, I’m already over a week behind on that. What’s one more day, really? Also, I have a French quiz tomorrow…but this is vastly more important than simple French phonetics, I’m sure. Ha.

Alright. Now that I’ve shed my guilt about shirking various responsibilities, I suppose I can truly begin.

I’m certain I’ve written before about optimism and pessimism, along with their corresponding advantages and disadvantages. (If you don’t believe, check the dreaded blog archive…or, worse yet, wander over to my old MySpace blog.) I’m also certain I never came to a firm conclusion on the matter. Is it best to be boundlessly optimistic and risk disillusionment from a harsh reality, or should we exhibit a guarded pessimism, giving reality a chance to outshine our initial expectations? It’s a matter of personal preference, I suppose…but, recently, I’ve given the subject a little more thought.

As you might recall from previous entries (and also from actually knowing me on a personal level), I’m an optimist at heart. Oftentimes, I display a certain amount of cynicism on the outside, but, inwardly, I expect the best in every situation. I’m an idealist through and through.

For example, I completed an internship in the public relations department at Light of Life Rescue Mission this past summer. When school let out in mid-May, I had a very distinct vision of my job: I would spend the summer using my writing skills to benefit the organization, and I would constantly be busy with new assignments—creating brochures, taking pictures, interviewing clients, writing press releases—which would make the time pass very quickly. I would truly be helping people, and my overall experience would be extremely rewarding.

Poor, naïve Andrew. My experience was…not that…at all. Not only was I very rarely “busy,” but to say that the time passed slowly would be like saying that a gunshot to the face “stings a little.” Not exactly what I envisioned, needless to say.

Now, before I go on a rant about how Light of Life stocks “rotating knife machines” in their kitchen (No lie; I took inventory for about a week, and I found many horrifying contraptions), let me try to make my point. Certainly, my experience was nothing like I had expected; I wasn’t running around, creating publications left and right, holding photo shoots, or even interacting with the clients very much. It wasn’t the “dream job” I had imagined from the get-go. In fact, it was rather awful.

Sometimes, though, I wonder if I simply drifted into the “this sucks” mindset too quickly. I wonder if my experience was somehow lessened by the fact that my lofty expectations hadn’t been met.

Now, perhaps my internship at LOL (ha) isn’t the best example…but I think you see what I’m trying to say, anyway (unless I’ve been even less coherent than usual). I set expectations all the time—we all do, I’m sure. We expect certain things each day and each night—during classes, when we’re with our friends, and even at meals (but I wouldn’t set your expectations too high if you’re dining in Hicks Cafeteria).

So, we’re back to square one, aren’t we? We set expectations, and we’re disappointed if they aren’t fulfilled. But the problem, really, might not be the expectations themselves. Lately, I’ve been trying to tell myself that—even if everything doesn’t go exactly how I imagined—things are probably just fine. More than fine, actually. Things are probably great, and I just fail to realize it sometimes because I’m so focused on what might have been.

Again, it’s a simple concept, and I’m astonished that it always takes me so long to work these things out. So, maybe I didn’t get the highest grade possible on my exam, and maybe I’m not feeling 100% well, and maybe my day wasn’t quite as magnificent as I dreamt it would be…but things are still—more than likely—pretty great.

So, what’s my conclusion? Things are pretty great. Period.

Thanks. That’s all.