Expectations

Lately i’ve been thinking a lot about expectations and how they pretty much seem to determine happiness. I’m not sure if that is actually true, but it does seem very logical. There are people in my life who seem to expect a lot of me and think I can do much better than what I am doing. I get told this a lot, even though I’m a pretty good, upstanding guy who takes care of himself and doesn’t do harm to anybody else. Basically I live my life. But I guess how people see me is as a person who is not living up to what i could be. I’m not really even sure what that is. Maybe they see that I’m not happy, therefore they automatically think I can do better, which is a fair thought. I also think it’s a money thing…somehow the fact that i am above average in the looks department and a genuinely good person makes people think I should be making more money than what I am making.

I also put a lot of pressure and expectations on myself, which when I think about it, seems to make me unhappy. I put expectations on relationships i’m in or jobs I have, or places I live, or places I go…and ultimately if they don’t live up to my expectations, then it makes me unhappy…or at least trends south towards unhappiness.

In a way I feel like this type of reasoning is just an excuse for me to not do better in my life. And maybe it is. But my buddy asked me the other day when he brought up this topic to me, “what does do better mean?”

It made me stop and think and I wasn’t sure. I feel like 90% of it involves being more financially stable…otherwise i feel like i live my life pretty close to how I would want to live it as far as how i was raised, where i live and the people i know. If I find a better job and/or start a business that i stick with for 20 years and make more money, would that mean I am doing better in life and would that mean i am living up to my expectations and others expectations equaling happiness?

What if i was an unattractive person who had a low-income job and I wasn’t expecting to date a beautiful, smart girl to travel the world with and I loved video games and I was content sitting around playing video games with no expectations of anything else. Would that person be happier than me because he just didn’t have as high of goals? That’s kinda why they think the Danish people are the happiest people on earth, because they just don’t expect much.

How would anything in our society get done if nobody had expectations to get them done?

Lately I’ve been struggling a lot trying to live up to other people’s expectations…really for about the past 2 years. There are people in my life i care so deeply about that I don’t want to let down and who make me feel like if i just do better at this or that, then i will be happy and they will be happy. But I’m just not sure if that is true. Maybe if I just focus on each moment in my life, and only look to the future when it’s absolutely necessary, then I will end up enjoying life more and being a happier person with less negative energy and less worry and stress. I think that will be my news years resolution, the first one I will have ever made. I think it’s going to be worth the try to lower my expectations and just enjoy when they are exceeded.

 

O Holy Night

Today I needed to find purity. I needed to be around people that weren’t going to judge me. People who could take my mind off of the negativity and just bring me pure happiness and feeling. So I went to see my nephews and niece and it was amazing as always. Little kids aren’t hardened by our society and haven’t developed notions other than what they see in front of them. It’s nice to be around that when you need to escape. They climbed all over me and asked me to help them answer their video game math problems. It was nice to focus my energy on basic things and see how excited they got to answer correctly 5 minus 3. 

I also decided to go buy a small christmas tree and christmas lights for my apartment. It is nice. I am listening to Christmas music and trying to get into the Christmas spirit. It’s been so warm outside the past few days that it’s not really feeling like December. I wish I would have gotten outside more this weekend…perhaps I shall go for run in the morning if it’s still warm.

It’s nice to write again. I tend to only write when I am lonely or unhappy. It’s a temporary relief. 

I’ve started 2 movies the past few nights and have turned both of them off before the halfway point. Both were good movies, I just haven’t had the patience to sit through them. My mind wanders. 

I should know better than to feel and act how I have the past few days. I’m not sure why I keep doing it. It’s pointless. 

I’m on my way, I’m taking my time.

My world is bizarre right now. It feels blurry. Tired and unable to sleep. I write because it relieves some of the angst, but not enough. I don’t understand a lot. My life is amazing compared to so many people, yet I feel sorry for myself at times which is pointless. Who am I? Why did I become like this? It seems it could be so perfect, and yet it’s not. Why don’t I just become what people see I am. How do I find that person? Why can’t I just enjoy the journey instead of thinking there has to be an outcome? I generally enjoy the journey more than anything, yet when I think about the potential outcome, I feel crazy. 

I need a social life here. I’m a loner but I’m not happy being a loner anymore. I used to be ok with it, but now I struggle with it. I say all of this and I’m as happy as I’ve been in a long time. I’m confident and generally feel good about who I am. But it’s also torture feeling like I’m not living up to my potential. What is my potential? 

 

I need to get right

I’ve been deep into my head the last few days and want to get out. A friend once told me it’s better to feel pain than to be numb towards life. I mostly agree with that, but right now I don’t want to feel. I just want to eat macaroni and cheese and focus on work. But I can’t. I let myself obsess over things I cannot change. I’m not strong enough yet. My problem is I am more of the artist type who values personal connection and human interaction more than I value anything else. I’m a Pisces. Yet I am attracted to strong women who value somebody different than me.  Therefore I am royally screwed when it comes to women, unless I somehow figure out a way to turn my passions into a successful business or find a way to be attracted to a different type. Is that possible? I’m grateful to my friends who are honest with me in regards to life and who I am and how they see me and just talking to me in general. I have amazing people in my life, some I talk to more than others and share with more than others.

Is it possible to lose important people in your life because you care about them too much? You cause them angst by caring…it makes me feel selfish at times.

I’ve learned a lot about myself just in the past year. I’ve faced my shit and learned to understand how I am built and what makes me tick and have learned to openly communicate how I feel. I almost feel like I’ve harbored so much emotion as an adult and not understood myself that now that I finally do, it’s oozing out of me uncontrollably. Part of me feels like a kid in a candy store who is seeing a wonderland of stimulation for the first time, which is truly an amazing feeling and maddening all at the same time. I am not patient.

All of my experiences are making me grow up, making me a better man. I know with time that all things will pass.

I didn’t win the Powerball…550 million.

I have a new apartment…living by myself. Took me a month to get furniture.

I’m into taking portraits of interesting people now more so than what I used to enjoy…landscapes and architecture. People are more interesting. Let me know if you want your photo taken. http://www.imagesbyjoseph.com

Photo of a Homeless man In Venice Beach

 

Changes

I haven’t signed on in a while. Some positive changes in my life. Started a new job that deals with Hawaii and got to spend 10 days in Hawaii for work. That wasn’t so bad now that I think about it. 

I’ve moved to Indianapolis, well, almost. I am staying with my sister until I get my own place. I’m hoping to make that happen next week, but we’ll see. I haven’t lived on my own in quite a long time. I am somewhat of a loner, so I enjoy my privacy and not dealing with others at times. 

I’m photographing my first wedding next month and am pretty excited about that. The style of the wedding fits me perfectly so I’m hoping all goes as planned.

It’s weird to realize how people come and go from your life. Sometimes there are people that you need to let go of to improve your life, sometimes there are people worth hanging onto even if it causes you more stress. Sometimes you meet people that make you question how good of a person you really are, and sometimes you meet people that make you feel like your life isn’t so bad after all. As always, I’m constantly evaluating my life and how it is evolving and analyzing the characters that play a part in my world. There are my good friends who are the constants, even if I don’t see them as much, and then there are the new friends who seem to help me evolve as a person, both good and bad. Lately I’ve felt myself open up a lot more and let myself feel, let myself go without being so guarded. It’s a good feeling, and I think even knowing it could lead to more hurt…it’s at least worth not feeling numb.

I’m glad football season is back and fall is here. It’s my favorite time of year and for some reason I don’t feel as guilty sitting on the couch watching tv on the weekends as I do during the summer time.

As always, check out my pics:

www.ImagesByJoseph.com

Life is so weir…

Life is so weird.

I went to see the 3 Stooges with my dad. He enjoyed it. My thought was it’s amazing how different early 1900′s humor was from today’s. I suppose it had to be more physical comedy than verbal because of silent films and then the lack of dirty language that there would have been.

Anyway….i am glad spring is here. I need to invest in some summer clothes or really clothes for any season because I haven’t bought any in a long while. Fortunately i never see anybody that I need to impress, so my current wardrobe has done the job. I will have to check the sale rack at Target.

My life is going in reverse. Seriously.

I started a new job a few weeks ago, and since then I’ve not been sleeping well. I think I’m afraid to oversleep, therefore I keep waking up every hour looking at the clock. I get up at 5:45 am, and yet I find myself laying in bed staring at the clock, waiting for the alarm because I’m already awake. I’m not a morning person, but in a weird way even knowing I am not sleeping well, I have been excited to feel like I am a morning person.

I only blog now because people ask me to. When I first started blogging, I wasn’t as filtered and so it was probably a much better read (not saying it was a good read but just better than now). I’ve realized that i don’t really want all of my personal thoughts for all to read. So I suppose if you want my real thoughts, ask me and I will just tell you instead of the world.

 

For whatever that means

So my father and I decided to take a little 2 week hiatus from our daily grind in Indiana to live it up on the east coast. The first week was to be in Cape Cod, and the 2nd week in Newport, Rhode Island….neither place we had been to. Well, my dad was in Cape Cod many years ago, but he doesn’t remember anything from his time there.

So we took off a week or so ago…and mother nature treated us with the first decent snow storm of the winter. So we drove 10 hours from Indiana to western New York in snow, which was lovely. Long story short, we made it to the Cape the following evening and everything was good there. Due to the time of year, nobody was there and many of the businesses and restaurants were closed, but we made do with what was open and had a good time. The beaches and landscape there were different from any beach I had been to, so that was pretty cool. I did some hiking and took some decent pics, so that worked out well.

So this week we are in Newport, Rhode Island. I love it here. I wasn’t really sure what to expect because I didn’t do much research and it was kind of an afterthought in regards to the trip…but Newport has definitely been a pleasant surprise and good contrast from Cape Cod. Newport seems to be a romantic little city, with the quaint walkable streets and shops, the history, the mansions from the Gilded Age, and of course the rocky coastline. The only negatives about Newport so far are the bitter wind and our next door neighbor who must have had a big party with 20 loud, obnoxious, terrible east coast accented people all weekend. The walls here are somewhat thin….and it’s a very low-key, nicer place where that type of noise isn’t supposed to be allowed…but the girl at the front desk was clearly afraid to do anything about it…so we were stuck to deal with it. Today, we ran into the dude in the hallway and he said “I hope we weren’t too loud this weekend”….followed up by “My name is….., and I come here a lot, so if you want to know where all the deals are this week, I can tell you where to go. I know all the deals. Tonight, there is a good deal on steak at this steak house, and tomorrow, they have 2 pizzas for 12 dollars at this pizza place. I know all the deals.” He kinda reminds me of a combination of Joe Pesci and Chris Farley. He also mentioned that my dad and I should stop by for a couple drinks…so now I have to spend the rest of the week avoiding him…which will be difficult to do because our doors are right next to each other and he always leaves his open for some reason. All of his people left and he is now staying by himself. Maybe I should give him a chance…but the noise thing over the weekend almost drove me insane. I am getting old.

Anyway, Newport is where it’s at if you are looking for a place to get away for a bit.

It’s interesting to be here watching the Boston and Providence News during super bowl week talking about Indianapolis and hearing some of them rip on Indy. A little different perspective out here.

Dad wants to go to IHOP in the morning…

Tomorrow needs to be a major picture-taking day…mostly of the buildings and architecture I think.