Musing

[written and published from south Calgary, near Fish Creek Park]

-1C/31F, overcast, light breeze; Gusta and I walked east for a change, checking on new cells in the subdivision, wandering the hay field that will soon be condos; we saw so much evidence of rabbits and deer and I wonder how they understand this encroachment; Gusta responded reasonably to ‘stay out of the muck’ but my expectations may have been too high

words can mean anything we want them to mean; we can structure them to be smart or crude, witty or lewd, high or mighty; too often we take others at their word to great disappointment – examples being politicians who promise with one side of their mouth while taking away with the other; newspapers with headlines and editorials exalting Earth Day yet come stuffed with 19 kinds of junk mail; is it when words are clever, is it when they are quick and snappy . . or is it when they have meaning or is it when they are meant?

it is Earth Day today . . plant a tree, climb a tree, look at a tree; save, conserve, take care, tread softly; we live in a wasteful wanton world of our own creation and – every time we turn a tap, flip a switch or open a package we are contributing to so much activity that runs counter to our expectations . . . yet when we hear of factory, industrial and waste activities harming water, air and soil we find it so convenient to point a finger at the other guy; our expectations SHOULD be high but those expectations should be directed at the guy in the mirror to change behavior in a way that will really affect something .. it is a good earth, but we are not good stewards of it because our expectations are too low . . not of others but of ourselves

Dickens, the man who gave us Scrooge, Fagan and Tiny Tim, the man who held up a mirror to society, a mirror for us all of frailty and failings, a reflection of our needs, joys and disappointments . . wrote of expectations, not ordinary expectations, but ‘Great Expectations’

the term ‘unreasonable expectations’ is probably used more often than ‘high expectations’ or ‘great expectations’; we live in a world rampant in cynical behaviour . . aided and abetted by our own disappointments when we had high expectations only to be sadly disheartened; when we do is there not something about our heart racing faster, our attention being focused they gives us more than a short term endorphin rush?

I guess, if you are going to have expectations, why should they be anything but great . . and if they are great shouldn’t they be meaningful and meant?

my society, my community, my government, my parents, my colleagues, my neighbours, my fellow citizens, my children - - each in some way will disappoint me from time to time . . but I cannot imagine not having high expectations of them; I have great expectations of many people; I’ll be disappointed more often than not but is that a reason to not have expectations?

mostly though . . on the issue of expectations, I think it matters most what our own expectations of ourselves might be; I think that is the only thing we have a hope of even partially controlling; expectations are not dreams, expectations are not whimsical wishes, expectations are what we expect; I expect things because I have reason to


"Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has great expectations." - Charles Dickens

I have expectations, lots of them; some are high, some not so high . . but they are all great;
let your expectations get-up, let them fly wherever you want them to go

Mark Kolke
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