You don't live up to my....

...expectations is something I have been hearing off-late. My usual thought process of, "In a situation like this, what would be the ideal solution" seems to be failing me more often than I can remember. Do you realize that the term "Ideal" is also subjective however definitive it might seem or look. When you say Ideal, you actually mean its ideal to someone, so its meeting some one's expectations. So an ideal solution to me is not your ideal solution. So its a messy affair. I say messy because it involves ideals, expectations and a few mortals. I have been a rebel & a difficult daughter to say the least and one of my best arguments at home was if I have met any of your expectations at all its just accidental and not a conscious effort. After saying all that, I am not ashamed to say that like all rebels, I also do subconsciously try to live upto people's expectations of me but it ain't that easy with a great grandma-kinda memory and a will-do-latter attitude.

While pondering, I keep falling back to my debates with my friend over idealism. She is one person who strives for ideals. But I know a lot of grief comes her way when things don't happen as per what was ideally suppose to have happened and I was her agony aunt. It was me who would leap at the chance of a lecture and a prey and start my hour-long sessions about how idealism is not part of the real world. Poor thing that she is (as far as arguments are considered), already scared I might lecture her to-fro from work almost not heeding for any breaks in-between, without taking any hints, be it yawns or even if we were in front of the loo and she would listen as I would rant on and I would make her say "I will do what I want to do".

So coming back to idealism, nothing in life is ideal. You deal on a day to day basis with non-idealistic events, people & problems. But all of us are so stuck about being the ideal person that we turn a lot of grief our way unnecessarily. Its almost like I saw this monster passing by me and since i was told to be nice by greeting everyone who happens to cross my path, I like an absolute moron greeted and invited the monster home. Its like trying to be the perfect child. You might ask what is in trying to be good and doing the right thing. Let me explain. A simple example, To be a perfect child what does one need to do, do good in something that would fetch you a hefty pay in the long run. But hello there!!I am so inspired by Sr. Mary and her white hood I manage to score the highest in moral science and for all I care I am on my way to becoming Sr Catherine. So Sr Catherine will find it frustrating to live up to the perfect child image and Sr Catherine's parents, friends (Sr Catherine isn't allowed to gossip) and boyfriends of course are going to be pretty disappointed. You get my point ..don't you. Trying to live up to standards and ideals set by others is difficult and hence very frustrating. The thing about living upto others is, even if you have tried your best by doing the nine things out of 10 the way others want, the one thing you do your way is going to get you the bad tag and at the end you wonder so why didn't I just do what I wanted instead of trying to measure against moral standards others have set for you.

So next time of whatever you tell me if you tell me "You don't live up to my expectations" ...be careful ..... I have load full of rocks for a meteor shower.