here comes 2009...

new year. i was in paris for the countdown. needless to say it was a disappointment. but the whole paris trip was great, now back in the hague. holland is just as cold. we almost froze in disneyland paris. anyway, for the first time, growing up isn't easy. it makes you want more. growing up is demanding. what you have slowly becomes insufficient. i learned something new- dealing with expectations. and i just realized, this phenomena of "insufficientness", comes from my very own expectations in life. and after a few long talks with my dear beloved aunt, it became apparent that high expectations runs in the family. maybe we were born with it. or perhaps we were born into it. i still have to admit, those expectations pushed us to achieve what we have today. still, it trained us to create new expectations; of people, of things, and of ourselves. those expectations left us disappointed countless of times in our life. the benchmark is always as high as possible, and when the end result is not up to that standard, we were devastated. be it with our studies, our relationship, our career, basically everything in our life is about expectations. i did ok in my studies. well, i wasn't excellent, but i did ok. however all throughout my life i felt like a failure. i faile my parents. i failed myself. same goes to relationship. its just so often that i am disappointed that things are not as i thought it should. often times, things are going on well, and whatever that we were working on is producing good results. just one tiny problem though. its not good enough. if i had only adjusted my expectations, i would have been happy with what we've got and perhaps appreciate things more. i am aware now that i need to adjust my expectations. and i am trying. i know now that those expectations are slowly kiling me inside. it is destroying me bit by bit. it is easier said than done. but i'm trying. i am. but then again, expectations come from goals, and if the goals are not high, can we really achieve greatness? are we really willing to settle for less?

Happy New Year people. Have a great year.

Sarah A.