Life Expectations

What are your expectations of life?

I’d heard plenty about the infamous “Delhi Belly” before my first trip to India — the fact that many first-time visitors get sick from the food.

So I told myself ‘Hey look, you wanna go see the world, you’re gonna get sick. That’s the deal.’

I tried to accept the fact before it happened. When I DID get sick it was, in a way, okay. That’s what I was expecting.

When I decided to start riding motorcycles, I told myself, ‘You wanna ride motorcycles? At SOME point, you’re gonna crash. That’s the deal.’

When I crashed my motorcycle in Kathmandu, the locals commented on how “stoic” I was. Psychologically, I had already prepared for the crash.

What about life itself? What are the right expectations?

If your expectation is that life should be easy and void of problems, it’s going to be a bumpy ride. You will be at constant war with reality, waiting for some future state of problemlessness that will never come.

If, on the other hand, you come in with the expectation that life is SUPPOSED to be hard, and that the whole game is setup to help you grow and evolve through an endless series of problems and hardships, then you will be better positioned to carry a lightness through this life.

How you view the game changes how you feel in the game.

Where do you turn to learn how to live? If you’re like me, you might turn to books. Or mentors. Or podcasts. You might engage in philosophical discourse with friends, family, and colleagues. You might lean into the onslaught of research and studies conducted on the topics of happiness, meaning, and life satisfaction. You might reflect through the practice of journaling. These can all be useful...

Where do you live? To answer that question you might give me a location. Let’s say New York. And though it may be true that you live in New York, you really live in a HOUSE in New York. Let’s say a big house. And though it may be true that you live in a big house in New York, you really live in your HEAD in your big house. You live in between the walls of your head — right there with all your...

The rougher the road, the lighter the grip. I first learned how to ride a motorcycle in Northern Thailand, mostly on bumpy, rocky, winding roads. My natural tendency on many of the bumpy dirt roads was to tighten my grip on the handlebars. The rougher the road, the harder I clenched. Until I realized that by the end of the ride my hands were in such severe pain I couldn’t even open them all the...

The evolution of mankind:
Walk walk walk, hunt, rest rest rest.
Walk walk, farm, rest rest rest.
Walk, farm farm, rest rest.
Sit, farm farm farm, rest rest.
Sit, work, rest rest.
Sit, work work, rest rest.
Sit, work work work, rest.
Sit, coffee coffee coffee, work work work, booze booze booze.

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