Hopes Expectations and Dreams
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| We have hope. We have expectations. And we have dreams. They are, of course, similar, but they are not the same. Hope has an element of luck. Expectations feel rooted more in reality. Dreams are wishes that we would like to come true.
We may hope, for instance, that, with a fair wind, a loved one will come through a health scare. Or we may cross our fingers and touch wood and hold high hopes for luck in a particular event. We may expect an event to go well, knowing that the best preparations have been made. We may have all kinds of expectations about a new relationship based on what we would like to happen or, for good or ill, what has happened in the past. We may dream up a self created ideal, visualise it and even half live in it. All these states of mind can engender ambition, aspiration and motivation. Goals or desires supply meaning and structure to what we do. Having such goals provide us with a map of how to get to where we want to go. Setting off with no destination could find you going in circles and getting nowhere. Arguably, without hopes and dreams it won’t happen. |
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| But what if we’re so fixed on the dream that we miss all sorts of alternate, perhaps even better, outcomes?
Because we hope that our dear child will go to Oxbridge/climb Everest/ circumnavigate Pluto, when they don’t, our hopes, expectations and dreams may shatter. To push a point, what if these H’s E’s and D’s exist even before the child and what if we then discover that the child is the ‘wrong’ gender or has a ‘disability’? What if we always knew we would have children but it just doesn’t happen? Or how do we cope when we meet a potential partner and they don’t behave like the perfect partner we had in mind? Then, if that child establishes world peace for instance, or the baby is perfect as it it – as babies are, or the partner in waiting doesn’t just bring us our favorite tulips but they bring red roses, we are so fixated on the H E or D that we don’t even notice. H E and D, it can be said, live in hell… Or perhaps offer heaven on Earth… Perhaps it’s all about balance: adjusting hopes, striving to fulfill expectations, acknowledging that a dream can also be an important guide. Many of the difficulties in life are caused by hopes, expectations and dreams outweighing or even obliterating reality or vice versa. Think about it. Let me know what you think. Enjoy July. If you’re going away have a marvellous time. If things are not quite so marvellous do contact me. With warmest Summer wishes, Suzanne |