great expectations

per a recent 60 Minutes, and per a few studies done yearly by some researcher in europe, denmark is again the world's happiest country. according to bits and pieces of this research, and some danish popular opinions, this is because

• a) the country is small, and having a smaller community creates more unity and therefore a sense of belonging among its inhabitants.


• b) they have much lower expectations about life and are therefore happier with what they get when they get it.


• c) they kicked major ass at some european soccer tournament back in the 1990's and are still revelling in that glory.

while I'll be the first to admit the importance of the other two major points, I'm here today, kids, to talk to you about b).

I can remember my mother screaming at me from across the kitchen during one of many of our fights when I was in high school: you're a snob, kerrie lynne! a pure snob! I have no recollection of the exact cause of the fight or the rest of the content of our banter, but I know, as you now do, that that one point stuck with me hard and fast. it stuck all this time because, as I knew it then, she was right: I have always been a snob. since I can remember having conscious thought, something deep within me has always turned its nose up on the "wrong" things, and assumed that others have the same high expectations of me, themselves, and the world.

I never had the money, or the family upbringing, or the material possessions, or even the knowledge and social prowess to be able to be quite the snob I always wanted to be. but I emulated the hell out of them. and somewhere it worked, at least in some way. I clearly remember the day a supervisor of mine, who obviously had a similar style of emulating others, said to me, kerrie, do you come from money? because you reek of it. (no joke!) in a split second I was both: slightly happy that someone finally noticed my emulated style; and slightly disgusted with myself for trying to be some snobby-but-compassionate vegan-hipster social work student, for being the confused and somewhat fake paradox I'd become.

I believe that to be the moment that started the line of thinking that got me to where I am today. that was the moment when I realized that while most of interaction is perception, I wasn't happy with the perception I was presenting others - nor was I happy with the perceptions (and assumptions, and therefore, expectations) I had of other people. that was the moment when I figured out that I needed a new way of looking at how I interacted with the world in this way.

it's not that I want to be happy with just anything, but I got to thinking: wouldn't it be nice if I could think of everything as an unexpected present from the universe? if, instead of going by precidents, or expecting certain patterns of behavior from others, I was just happy when the good part of the pattern happened, no matter how often it did? wouldn't it be nice if I could celebrate little accomplishments, no matter how little, as long as they made someone feel good?

as one of my first blogs stated, I have become a much more open person in the last 20 months than I'd ever hoped to be. maintaining that openness along with a sense of hope does not equal lowered expectations in anyway, but I have learned to adjust my expectations. many of you have heard stories of my supervisor at WU, whom I most often portray as prissy and demanding. last week I noticed a post-it note that she had neatly tacked up above her phone: see the world as it is, not as you would have it.

I thought, oh shit, other people stress about expectations, too. and then I thought, that's totally right! when I gave my general new year's resolution as a half-joking "to just be," somewhere inside of me I was hoping for a way to express that I was tired of having grandiose expectations of myself and others, and I'm tired of other people expecting me to be that way.

I have consciously been trying out this "lowering" of my own expectations... and I'm enjoying myself. sure, there's still a little voice inside of me that wants to point out the small quirks and faults, that wants to be upset when certain things aren't done, but it's a small voice. a small voice that is easily drowned out by the strange calm-but-excited hum I get in my head when I smile at all of my little celebrations instead of scoffing at them.

I truly believe that somewhere in each of us is the ability to become more patient, more understanding, and less expecting. how these interplay for us personally, how they come about and manifest, is up to us and up to how our lives unroll. but the point is that we all have the opportunity to be the happiest entity on the planet, the denmark of human beings, and I think we should take it.