Resigning off...
A while back I wrote a post about expectation and the ways it informs our lives.
Recently, I've been thinking about that subject again and expanding upon some of the feelings I had then. No, I'm not going back on what I said before, I think that my views about expectations and the way we do or don't let them rule our lives are pretty much the same. What I have come to ruminate on instead is the way that expectation and resignation become linked as we get older.
Expectations are hard little things to have. Though we try to hold on to them, keep them in check, every once in a while they go running off by their lonesome. And when they do this they can get so big, so strong, that even when we know they got that way from being free wheeling and fancy free, they start to make sense to us. And when, as inevitably when has to come along, one of these larger than life expectations bites off more than it can chew, it hurts, and it often hurts bad.
When we're younger it seems these wounds heal pretty quickly. "S'ok." we tell ourselves, "I know now what I can expect." And we make extra careful to keep an eye on that particular expectation. We hold its leash close, closer usually than we might have before, because we don't want it getting away from us again. And that's only logical, humans are creatures of their environment, we're born to learn from our pasts. Sometimes we let go a little again, trusting those expectations have learned their lessons. Once in a while they go back to their old devil-may-care ways and hurt us again.
And as we age it seems harder to trust and give second chances with our bruised egos on the line. If our surroundings have taught our expectations to keep themselves in check who are we to disagree? So we stop listening to the expectations and start deciding what we ought to be striving for now that we're real live adults. And as we travel along the line of life we trade pieces of that child-like naivete for something better seeming, an "attainable" job, a "solid" relationship, a "good" home. This solid and tangible something surely has to be better than an ephemeral if seductive nothing, doesn't it?
But somewhere in the thick of things, I think that we start to forget our environments grow and change with us. Though the situation that created an impulse to settle may have disappeared, and in fact maybe that expectation doesn't need that stranglehold any more, we're wary of putting ourselves through the anguish again. Sometimes the pay off for letting go isn't big enough, or we don't feel strongly enough about it to take the risk. Sometimes we're correct in assuming that we'll probably go back to the old mistakes. But sometimes, so focused are we on not doing whatever it was we did before, we never even let ourselves think about what the new outcome of trying again might be at all. And slowly we cut out choice after choice, block up avenue after avenue of option. Added up in large enough quantities and eventually "What do I expect?" starts to consistently become "What am I resigned to getting?"
Ok, deep thinkers. Dictionary time!
res·ig·na·tion (n.)
1) The act or an instance of resigning.
2) An oral or written statement that one is resigning a position or an office.
3) Unresisting acceptance of something as inescapable; submission.
Don't you love when dictionaries use the word as its own definition? I do. The second one I include for completeness' sake. But number three. We know how much I love to deconstruct wordings. Pretty grim, number three, no? Acceptance of something, well I'm generally pretty positive on acceptance, but accepting a situation as inescapable? Better be really really sure you have to accept that one. I mean.. Yikes, if there's ever an out clause for acceptance this might be it. Reminds me of being stuck in a tiny box with no way out. Unresisting doesn't seem much fun either. A logical person might be tempted to ask why someone would force acceptance of something so seemingly bleak. And what's the deal with submission? Submission to what? The unresisting/inescapable thing!? Ah! Help! I'm trapped in a box of my own life and I can't get out!!!
Deep calming breaths...
Really when you think about it, there's no external boxes, there's no iron fist, and there isn't a written statement telling us what our lives are allowed to be. If anything what we're really submitting to is nothing more than ourselves. Unconsciously brainwashing our minds to believe that we don't need more than what we've already got. Which brings me to another amusing definition:
re·sign (v.) - Acceptance of despair.
And for good measure let's pull that thesaurus out and throw in some synonyms:
acquiescence, compliance, conformity, deference, docility, longanimity, lowliness, meekness, nonresistance, passivity, submission, submissiveness, sufferance
Bleh! If you ask me that section reads like an adjective list for mindless depressed people about to join some weird Kool-Aid suicide cult. So after all my ponderings about expectation and its best pal resignation I think I've come to this:
For those like me that create specfic and very real expectations, disappointment can become debilitating. So much so that it's often just easier to resign oneself to less than you might wish/dream/hope for so that you don't have to worry about not living up to your own set of high jump bars. But despite its deceptive name few people are really consoled by their consolation prizes. So stop and take stock because if you aren't already jumping for joy, or at least giving a sideways smile, if you really have to resign to whatever it is you're resigning to, then it probably isn't what you really want. And if it isn't what you want, why are you still holding onto it?
Recently, I've been thinking about that subject again and expanding upon some of the feelings I had then. No, I'm not going back on what I said before, I think that my views about expectations and the way we do or don't let them rule our lives are pretty much the same. What I have come to ruminate on instead is the way that expectation and resignation become linked as we get older.
Expectations are hard little things to have. Though we try to hold on to them, keep them in check, every once in a while they go running off by their lonesome. And when they do this they can get so big, so strong, that even when we know they got that way from being free wheeling and fancy free, they start to make sense to us. And when, as inevitably when has to come along, one of these larger than life expectations bites off more than it can chew, it hurts, and it often hurts bad.
When we're younger it seems these wounds heal pretty quickly. "S'ok." we tell ourselves, "I know now what I can expect." And we make extra careful to keep an eye on that particular expectation. We hold its leash close, closer usually than we might have before, because we don't want it getting away from us again. And that's only logical, humans are creatures of their environment, we're born to learn from our pasts. Sometimes we let go a little again, trusting those expectations have learned their lessons. Once in a while they go back to their old devil-may-care ways and hurt us again.
And as we age it seems harder to trust and give second chances with our bruised egos on the line. If our surroundings have taught our expectations to keep themselves in check who are we to disagree? So we stop listening to the expectations and start deciding what we ought to be striving for now that we're real live adults. And as we travel along the line of life we trade pieces of that child-like naivete for something better seeming, an "attainable" job, a "solid" relationship, a "good" home. This solid and tangible something surely has to be better than an ephemeral if seductive nothing, doesn't it?
But somewhere in the thick of things, I think that we start to forget our environments grow and change with us. Though the situation that created an impulse to settle may have disappeared, and in fact maybe that expectation doesn't need that stranglehold any more, we're wary of putting ourselves through the anguish again. Sometimes the pay off for letting go isn't big enough, or we don't feel strongly enough about it to take the risk. Sometimes we're correct in assuming that we'll probably go back to the old mistakes. But sometimes, so focused are we on not doing whatever it was we did before, we never even let ourselves think about what the new outcome of trying again might be at all. And slowly we cut out choice after choice, block up avenue after avenue of option. Added up in large enough quantities and eventually "What do I expect?" starts to consistently become "What am I resigned to getting?"
Ok, deep thinkers. Dictionary time!
res·ig·na·tion (n.)
1) The act or an instance of resigning.
2) An oral or written statement that one is resigning a position or an office.
3) Unresisting acceptance of something as inescapable; submission.
Don't you love when dictionaries use the word as its own definition? I do. The second one I include for completeness' sake. But number three. We know how much I love to deconstruct wordings. Pretty grim, number three, no? Acceptance of something, well I'm generally pretty positive on acceptance, but accepting a situation as inescapable? Better be really really sure you have to accept that one. I mean.. Yikes, if there's ever an out clause for acceptance this might be it. Reminds me of being stuck in a tiny box with no way out. Unresisting doesn't seem much fun either. A logical person might be tempted to ask why someone would force acceptance of something so seemingly bleak. And what's the deal with submission? Submission to what? The unresisting/inescapable thing!? Ah! Help! I'm trapped in a box of my own life and I can't get out!!!
Deep calming breaths...
Really when you think about it, there's no external boxes, there's no iron fist, and there isn't a written statement telling us what our lives are allowed to be. If anything what we're really submitting to is nothing more than ourselves. Unconsciously brainwashing our minds to believe that we don't need more than what we've already got. Which brings me to another amusing definition:
re·sign (v.) - Acceptance of despair.
And for good measure let's pull that thesaurus out and throw in some synonyms:
acquiescence, compliance, conformity, deference, docility, longanimity, lowliness, meekness, nonresistance, passivity, submission, submissiveness, sufferance
Bleh! If you ask me that section reads like an adjective list for mindless depressed people about to join some weird Kool-Aid suicide cult. So after all my ponderings about expectation and its best pal resignation I think I've come to this:
For those like me that create specfic and very real expectations, disappointment can become debilitating. So much so that it's often just easier to resign oneself to less than you might wish/dream/hope for so that you don't have to worry about not living up to your own set of high jump bars. But despite its deceptive name few people are really consoled by their consolation prizes. So stop and take stock because if you aren't already jumping for joy, or at least giving a sideways smile, if you really have to resign to whatever it is you're resigning to, then it probably isn't what you really want. And if it isn't what you want, why are you still holding onto it?
posted by A at 8:02 PM
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