Unmet Expectations

I had years of disappointing birthdays stacked up behind me. Birthdays where my husband didn’t get the right gift. Or he forgot the flowers. Or my family just pretty much forgot the holiday altogether. Years where no one really emailed or called or not as many people as I had hoped. Or the cake wasn’t right. Or no card. Or the card message wasn’t long enough. You get the picture. It was getting to the point where I was dreading my birthday because it just never met my expectations.

Expectation is the death of all joy.

So, I decided to try a different approach. Instead of spending all of my time mourning about what I wasn’t getting for my birthday, I decided to make my birthdays giving birthdays. I have had some wonderful adventures on my giving birthdays. One year I decided to do some service by leaving flowers on the grave of my dear friend Lois Price. I accidentally locked my keys in the car and my old school phone had run out of minutes. Here I was, stuck in a cemetery in Flagstaff, Arizona with no escape. After walking around for a while I finally managed to track down someone who was mowing lawns who let me call my husband on his phone. While I waited for my husband to bring me the keys I had the best birthday ever - looking at headstones and reading the inscriptions on them. I made some interesting discoveries about what is important in life, and which graves seemed the happiest. When someone sums up your life in about ten words, what would you want them to say? I decided I would not want to leave God, family or love out of my life.

So, if you are struggling with unmet expectations in any area of your life try turning your thoughts to others and to service. I guarantee that you will see some exciting and unexpected results.

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