I love the movies, and catching up on all the latest offerings is part of my August vacation pleasure. Over the weekend we saw (500) Days of Summer which I thoroughly enjoyed.
One scene particularly stayed in my mind for its personal truth which applies to my business as well. The screen splits in half for this segment. On the left-hand side we see the hero’s ‘expectations’ played out. On the right side you see the ‘reality’ revealed. It’s funny, poignant and raw.
How many times have I choreographed my expectations in my head, only to be flattened by the reality? The incident that comes to mind immediately (and most painfully) was when I arrived in North Carolina to finalize the photography and edits for my first book, Decorating Eggs. I imagined that there would be a red carpet rolled out and my editor waiting on the tarmac with a sign saying: AUTHOR just waiting for me to de-plane. The reality was not only no red carpet, but no editor either. I had to call her to tell her I had arrived.
It got better, but I’ve since learned to curb my expectations.
I love that you saw this movie and liked it as much as I did!
I distilled so many wonderful messages from it, my favorite being if you follow your passion, things will click right into place.
I love the soundtrack as well and have had it on repeat for a week.
The other side to that is the negative self talk we build up in our minds when we expect the worst. “she hasn’t called me about my proposal…she must think it’s too high…she must have bought someplace else….” I find I get too focused on myself and way too much in my own head when this starts too happen. When I call to follow up I usually find something totally different is going on. Usually they are just busy or are waiting for me to follow up. I am looking forward to the movie!
Yes! I loved the entrepreneurial side of the movie plot also. Even though I truly enjoyed the movie, I had “expectations” of a bigger bang ending, so I felt a little let down as I walked out of the theatre. Then, after thinking about it for a couple of hours I realized the ending actually was big…..I just didn’t see it because my expectation was different. The other take-away for me was seeing yet more evidence that even when joy is involved in executing one’s passion….it still requires a lot of work! It’s just joyful work!
Oh–forgot to include my own experience with choreographed expectations that go flat! My daughter and I launched a new wholesale company this past year and exhibited for the first time at the Atlanta Gift Mart. We just knew customers would be flocking to our booth, standing in long lines to place orders, and we were nervous about how we would possibly handle all the traffic???!!! Well, no worries about THAT:). Although we felt blessed and proud of our sales, everyone was reporting a down economy, boo hoo hoo all six days. But, we left there with 20 new stores to bring our total to 33 stores now in 12 states.
So, our expectations were so BIG because we had worked so HARD to get that far. The world doesn’t necessarily accomodate our expectations no matter how hard we work, but we just keep plugging and believing anyway!
@Dara
Well said! Thanks for your comments–