THINGS DON'T ALWAYS WORK OUT

Good intentions can fall short
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I just never learn! I have a tendency to put too much of myself into my undertakings and then when things do not work out as anticipated I am left totally demoralized and emotionally shattered. What I fail to accept, at my peril, is the fact that there is no way to predict the future or how others may perceive good intentions. My journalistic background as an editorialist should have seasoned me, but it hasn't...completely.

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Intensity has often worked against me in my life and I would not be writing this item now were it not for the fact I am a living example of how motivation and enthusiasm can often unexpectedly backfire on a person. Sad but true!

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One should never lose sight of the reality that what is meaningful and important to us personally may well be of little significance to someone else. There is also another disturbing fact of life: people tend to hear only what they want to hear and see only what they want to see. It is indeed an extremely insightful communicator who is able to take all of that into consideration.
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I recently had one of those demoralizing, shattering experiences where my enthusiasm and creativity went the way of a wet balloon. Circumstances generally, were not conducive to a seamless acceptance of what I was presenting and the time that it took me to present it. As is so often the case with me, in a frenzy of passion, I over-worked the situation, failing to remember that sometimes less is more. Or at least some people would have it that way when otherwise inner directed. I exceeded expectations on one hand and in so doing innocently caused consternation on the other.

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Attempts at defensive justification after the fact only made matters worse. I should not have bothered. Minds were set and a simple misunderstanding took on a life of its own. Nobility is frequently in the eye of the beholder.

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I will not divulge further details except to say that there was a hard-learned lesson for me in all of this. There is no way for us to predict all the twists and turns in life, so we should not leave ourselves vulnerable to inflated expectations. We have to understand that many times others view things with different eyes than ours and have expectations quite apart from our own. Perceptions and interpretations also frequently vary and do not necessarily dove-tail with ours. Then, of course, mistakes can be made and we have to be prepared to deal with the inevitability of a certain amount of backlash.

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For those of us who believe we create our own reality, in truth, it is a co-creation with a power much greater than us. We can be optimistic in our thinking as we anticipate a particular outcome, but at some point we need to let go of the picture of how we think things should turn out. Life is a big surprise -- some times pleasant and other times not so pleasant. We can only do our best and then let go. In experiencing what follows, we can be taken places we could never have anticipated.

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The one nice part of a difficult situation is that it will eventually pass. Things tend to work themselves out, although perhaps not always in the way we expect. If we feel that we are moving in the right direction, then we should just keep going. Quiting is also an option, but then we admit defeat.

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Someone once said: "Everything is okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end!"