It is all too common for us to build up things in our heads.  Why do you think the “expectations vs. reality” joke is so common?  Sometimes it’s in reference to baking fails where we can never ice that cake as well as the original picture.  But more often than not it’s our own idealistic vision of how an event will go down.  We try to hold on to our mental image of the ways things should be, but it’s a fragile picture that will rarely hold up to the truth.  The consequence of these expectations is a painful feeling of disappointment.  We feel cheated as if we deserved the exact thing we imagined and life didn’t live up to its part of the deal.

I know I felt that way this past year.  When COVID hit at the end of my senior year of high school, I and many other seniors across the U.S. lost our prom and graduation.  These were things that I had idealized for years.  My expectations failed drastically because the reality was not even close to what I had imagined.  Trust me, I didn’t imagine “nothing,” because that is what it ended up being.

I also had so many expectations coming into college.  For three years before coming to Penn State, I dreamed of what it would be like to be a student and live in a dorm.  I idealized the freedom and fun I would have with new friends.  That isn’t to say that college has been terrible.  It’s been pretty amazing, in fact.  However, COVID has caused so many restrictions that prevented certain experiences such as football games and hanging in each other’s dorms.  Because of the altered campus experience, many of my initial hopes and expectations were crushed.  It took me some time to take what I did have at face value and learn to appreciate it, even if it was not exactly what I expected.

I think it’s definitely okay to have expectations, as long as they are reasonable.  Of course, everyone has different views on what is fair.  The important part is to not let these expectations ruin our enjoyment of live experiences.  It’s okay if things don’t go as planned because sometimes the things you don’t expect can still turn out to be good.  It’s all a matter of perspective.  The pottery of our imaginations may be beautiful, but it is fragile.  The broken pieces can either be left to linger or put back together in a way better than our wildest dreams.