Category: Motivation

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that it’s been almost two years since the pandemic started and changed the face of the world forever. in some ways, many ways, the pandemic has allowed people’s true colours to rear their ugly heads. People allowing their sense of entitlement and their perceived rights to interfere with doing “what’s right,” and as a result, this whole thing has lingered for far longer than it should have.

I’m not here to advocate for vaccination. Not am I saying a person shouldn’t. But what i am saying is that it’s 2021 9soon to be 2022) and the population should be far more enlightened by this point than what they are. Society has divided itself in ways that haven’t been seen in recent memory, at least here in Canada. So on the eve of one of the most widely recognized holidays on the Gregoria’s calendar, allow me the indulgence of moment’s reflection and advice.

Be kinder to each and have some understanding. Everyone is scared. Everyone is worried. And everyone is mostly trying to do what they feel is best for themselves and their families. I’ve yet to encounter a person who is intentionally taking a stance on one side or the other for the intentional purpose of sowing dissension. Oh, I’m sure they’re out there. I’m simply saying that it’s wrong to assume that the neighbour who chooses NOT to be vaccinated is intentionally trying to bring harm to others, or the retail store employee requiring you to put on a mask is trying to ruin your day.

Everyone is trying to do their best, even if sometimes misguided or misinformed. And for those still braving the wilds of the outside world, the challenges are greater still. So, on the eve of the second Christmas where the world is at a standstill and many of us are far from our families and loved ones, take this opportunity to reflect and appreciate the most important aspect about this whole debacle: YOU are still here. Life is still taking place and there’s still so much to do, so show some empathy. Show some sympathy. Follow the rules and avoid causing suffering in yourself and others. only with those concepts in mind can the world begin to move forward. Food for thought…☯️

I used to watch a comedy skit show, back in the 90’s and early 2000’s. It wasn’t Saturday Night Live but it was something similar to that. They had this skit they ran called “Lowered Expectations” about a dating sight for folks who had basically given up and would date anybody. I found it funny back then, even during times when I was single, myself. But I can imagine the scene wouldn’t play out too well in today’s demographic, given everyone’s sensitivity to every little thing under the sun. But I digress…

The topic of today’s post isn’t about comedy or that particular show, which I still can’t recall and can’t be bothered to Google. The focus is expectation, as it relates to daily life. Funny things, expectations. Everyone has them, everyone focuses their efforts on them but very rarely do they pan out. And why is that? Perhaps it’s because anything worth having in this life needs to be worked for and CAN’T be expected. But hey, what do I know? I’ve expected things in life, just like everyone else.

When I was younger, I was FULL of expectations. I expected to graduate high school. I expected to complete a college or university education, get married, get a black belt, open a karate school, be debt-free and live out all of my dreams before calmly and peacefully moving on to the next life. Of course, I also expected to see a cure for Type-1 Diabetes in this lifetime. The jury’s out on whether that one will happen or not.

Granted, I accomplished some of the things listed above. None of it was without difficulty and some augury of suffering, but most things in life are difficult. Life isn’t meant to be easy. The big piece is being able to tell the difference between a goal and an expectation. A goal is defined as the object of a person’s ambition or effort, a desired result of something that one strives to achieve. An expectation is the belief that something will happen.

There is a correlation between goals and expectation. After all, if you put your maximum effort behind accomplishing a goal, you can likely expect that you’ll be successful. But what if you aren’t? Should you EVER expect the end results of your goals to be positive? It raises an important philosophical question about one’s ability to think positively and eliminate suffering in one’s life. After all, why WOULDN’T I be succesful if I set goals and work hard at them, right?

The problem is, and I seem to utter this thought in almost every post I write, that life doesn’t care about one’s plans. Life happens REGARDLESS of one’s plans and is often counterintuitive to one’s efforts. this makes expecting a particular outcome to be as efficient as using the concept of winning the lottery as your retirement plan. It’ll work, should you ever win the lottery. But the odds of that happening are ridiculously unlikely.

My point here is that I couldn’t sit back and expect that any of the goals I described in the third paragraph to happen on their own. I had to work at them and fight to accomplish those goals. If I expected to complete a post-secondary education as opposed to putting in the hard work, there would be empty spaces on my walls as opposed to where my certifications are displayed. If I expected to achieve a certain degree of skill in the martial arts without all the blood, sweat and tears I put in, I never would have reached my previous goals and continue to work towards the ones I’ve set for the future.

Don’t sit back. Don’t expect things to happen. You need to step out into the light and MAKE them happen. I see an unfortunately high number of articles I’ve read where the concept of no longer working hard and going through struggle to achieve one’s goals is becoming a thing. What kind of new-age, snowflake crap is that? Life doesn’t happen to those who sit back and wait for it. Although it’s important to find peace within one’s own life, if you sit back and wait for the float with your expectations to arrive, the whole parade will pass you by. Food for thought… ☯️

Ah, multitasking… How often have we heard the term throughout our personal and professional lives? As a child, I used to hear it the most from teachers. “Oh, you need to learnt to multitask in order to get things done…” In college, it was almost an expectation and a mantra that students were expected to multitask. Multitask this, multitask that, get things done… I made my way through life with the concept that one had to always be taking care of many things at once, in order to keep up. Although this belief was created and grown by the adults and influences around me, I have to recognize that I played my part in developing the belief that I could, in fact, multitask. But I was wrong. And so are you, if you believe you’re actually multitasking…

Multitasking is a myth. Our brains are not wired to perform high level functions required to accomplish many simultaneous tasks at once. When someone is “multitasking,” they’re usually dividing their attentions between the tasks that they’re performing, albeit quickly enough that they feel they may be doing them simultaneously. The problem with this, is that we run the risk of leaving one task linger or leaving it behind. As we do this consistently throughout the day, we also run the risk of carrying the weight of all those uncompleted tasks along with us, throughout the day. This can result in feeling additional stress and pressure of all the weight we’re carrying, which could have easily been avoided by completing one task before on to the next.

An article posted by the Cleveland Clinic entitled Why Multitasking Doesn’t Work, explains that “We’re really wired to be monotaskers, meaning that our brains can only focus on one task at a time. When we think we’re multitasking, most often we aren’t really doing two things at once, but instead, we’re doing individual actions in rapid succession, or task-switching.” The article gores on to say that “when our brain is constantly switching gears to bounce back and forth between tasks […] we become less efficient and more likely to make a mistake.”

For example, I seem to be constantly interrupted by my children for various reasons while trying to write this post. As a result, I’ve had to correct and re-write various portions of the post, even some simple sentences. Another good example is while trying to learn in school. Although taking notes during a lecture is something we all grew up doing, this activity can be a hindrance since one’s attention needs to be focused on the lecture and not taking notes. As you jot down notes, you’ll be prone to miss things that are said or ask the lecturer to repeat themselves because your attention was on your notes as opposed to on what was being said.

You’re probably thinking, that’s all bullshit! I multitask ALL the time, I cook while chatting with my family, I watch television while folding laundry… Although it may seem as thought you’re doing these things simultaneously, you’re really not. And it isn’t all that noticeable when it’s simple tasks that you’re accustomed to performing. It becomes more problematic when the task in question becomes more complicated, convoluted or has something at stake, such as work performance. This is why it’s important to be present in the moment and focus on only one thing at a time. Even when you have a list of things to accomplish, completing one task before moving on to thew next ensures completion of given tasks and less opportunity for oversight and mistakes.

This isn’t a new concept, nor am I revealing anything earth-shattering. But even in the present day, when the pressures and requirements of daily life have done nothing but grow and increase, people still believe that they can perform several tasks at once. And to an extent, maybe they can. But the results are much more positive when we take it one thing at a time. Be in the now. Focus on the present. begin and complete one item before moving on to the next, unless prioritization forces you to do otherwise. The result will be better efficiency, less stress, less pressure and the possibility of living in the moment, which is where we all belong. ☯️