expectations [other imperfections]

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Each new year we get new expectations, desires, we make wish lists to fulfill with changes we preview and expect. And after all the festivities and superstitions are ended, we get stuck in competing with a schedule of deadlines and inspirational quotes from the endless motivational pages on social media.

But are these lists really feasible or capable of being fulfilled by us? Or are we just overloading ourselves with unrealistic hopes or desires that take too much longer than a year to be accomplished? Because often we end up the year understanding that most part of those lists haven't got fulfilled, haven't become real, haven't changed us in what's essential. We end up defrauded and questioning where did we go wrong once again? Which method did fail? Or, why we couldn't, even in certain cases, have the will or the need to do it?

Of course there's people who live well with lists. They live daily with goal deadlines to accomplish, living by measures that make them chose one or another path, prefer this or that place, make one or another dream come true and ending each year feeling absolutely complete, knowing they accomplished what they set for

But to me it seems that maybe it's more efective, more honest, that we only wish each year to be better human beings, to be able to guide our capacities towards small goals rather than unmeasured or unrealistically timed dreams. Seeing the all before the unit is often a castrating form of living and it induces us to not admire the details of daily labor to achive what we desire and makes us breathe.

The engine of decisions at each new beginning of the year should be our own experience, our rythm in pursuing reliable goals necessary to our physical and psychological well being, without the social weight that says it's needed a 90 degrees turn each completed period.

The pressure we subjected ourselves too often with unmeasured expectations, or the ones created by the people around us, lead us to forget the essence of simplicity that must be behind each resolution, of each step given towards happiness and to fulfill ourselves as human beings. It's with lightness that the most intense dreams come true. It's with serenity that the most beautiful moments happen. And it's with amenities that we conquer our spot in the sun.

by Nádia Prazeres