Expectations. You weren't expecting another post!

Yep I'm posting again. This time because I'm filled with a general feeling of wellbeing. I'm doing a real estate deal right now where I'm giving pretty well all of the commission to my client to help her buy the house she really wants. I like this. Also the family is nice and Cape Verdean and I'm starting to realize how much I don't know about other ethnic groups (i.e. how fucking awesome their food is). Also that the class of people with whom I most easily associate (educated pampered white kids) are often those with whom I have the least in common. Something about being rasied in Kentucky maybe, but simple conversations with simple people make my soul sing while sophisticated analysis of pop culture just depresses me these days. Now bear in mind old habits die hard, and I do love the pop culture of america and jokes regarding 19th century US history, but first and foremost I'm realizing I'm a person, and a low-brow one at that. I no longer want to save the world or be an important person in it, I simply hope to be a good person in the world and to engage it as it really is. Too many people think the world should be what they'd like it to be. Just as when I was 6, my father's words are so so true, "The only things that will make you truly unhappy are your own expectations of how things should happen." How true and subtle. Almost all of my unhappiness to date has flowed from my expectations. I'm only dissapointed with a result, gift, grade, paycheck, or whatever if I've set myself up the expectation of something. This could be extended to our political life in that the greater a societies expectation of entitlement, the greater its disillusion with its government. Leading me to wonder, do we believe the government is worse than it is because we expect it to do more than a should. Look who's becoming a conservative... ME! But definitely a compassionate one, or at least a really stupid real estate agent. But on sunny days when I'm working to help good people get the good homes they deserve and am not expecting myself to be prom king/Jesus Christ ... I like myself. I can look at all the choices in my life and at least understand why I did what I did and try to own that. I can look ahead at the choices I might make and the potential outcomes. But I cannot look to the future with any expectation other than I will have to work very hard and suffer through many hardships. The bitch (or rub if you prefer) lies in the fact that I've already had more priveledge and love and happiness than I'm ever likely to deserve. I don't have any bitch credits left and life isn't even half-over. WEll there are worse problems to face. (see: any news source, try something about africa)