My New Paper Friend

This is my new friend. He's a paper crane. I made him. I've decided to name him Schroeder. Maybe tomorrow I'll make him a little paper crane family, but until then, he's on his own... Poor Schroeder...

My best friend always says that expectations are premeditated resentments, which I think is a really good thing to say. But this guy Jeremiah says that our gift in life is a hope and a future, which is also a good thing to say. I've been trying to live in the ticklish place between the two.

Not having expectations can be a really positive thing. If you refuse to hold people up to your own expectations, it will be that much harder for them to disappoint you. I realize that this sounds really defensive right now, but just hear me out... Putting expectations on people really just binds them. It keeps them from giving me all of whatever it is they have to give. Expectations say "What you have isn't good enough. I need this." If I lower my signboard of rules and requirements that I hold in front of others and simply let them be, I am much more likely to have fulfilling and satisfying relationships. Because its not until people fail to meet my standards that I begin to feel resentful. I am happy to just let others meet their own standards and gain whatever I can from that.

Then there's hope. Hope is really important. Because if you are alive, you have a dream inside of you. Dreams are what happens when your soul is breathing. Dreams are what feeds our hearts till we're full. And a dream without hope, without the possibility of fruition... that's just despair. I dream about beauty and life... and love. And if my dream exists without the smallest drop of hope to feed it, it will languish. It will fade. And it just might die altogether.

But hope is just two slides over from expectation, isn't it? Hoping a thing will happen- a door will open, a flower will bloom, a heart will love- precludes the possibility that it won't. But expectation says it must, which is a much more heartbreaking business.

Living between the two is like walking a tightrope, but its one that leads to our broadest possible future. This feels really complicated and I'm not sure I'm doing a very good job communicating it but I hope you can at least catch my drift...