8/16/2017 0 Comments four paragraphs on anticipationMy wife and I use Google Calendar to coordinate our schedules. Our calendars fill up quickly with events, engagements, and commitments. Some of them are exciting and others are ordinary. I love putting appointments on my calendar (besides dentist appointments) because I have something new to look forward to.
Anticipation is an exciting feeling. Everyone has events that they look forward to. For some it's a Friday-night date, for others it's a long-planned vacation. Almost everything is anticipated, mostly positively but also negatively. A doctor's appointment on the calendar is anticipated nervously; a child's first day of Kindergarten is anticipated as exciting and scary years in advance by parents. Very few future events are anticipated with total ambivalence. Even voting or going to the grocery store elicits some sort of emotional reaction. I love anticipation, sometimes more than the actual event. And I love it even more when the actual experience exceeds my expectations. Most events meet my expectations, but quite a few have been more enjoyable than I anticipated. Most are sports- or concert-related, like watching the Seahawks win in person, but I can recall many random experiences that were much better than anticipated. Even something as simple as sitting on the couch with a cold beverage or glass of wine at the end of a long day of child-wrangling, cooking, and cleaning is often even better than anticipated. I have high expectations when anticipating an event, so I am disappointed when my expectations are not met. Sometimes restaurants aren't as good as advertised or something I thought would be fun turned out to be not much fun. For example, I went to see a new band a few months back with my friend and was disappointed that the band was talented but boring because they just jammed out instead of singing actual songs like I had heard on the radio. And standing up for 3 hours murdered my entire body. I did not anticipate being so sore after attending a concert because when I was younger I never thought twice about standing up for hours on end. Another example of getting older both exceeding (being married and becoming a parent) and not exceeding (being sore and tired all the time) my expectations.
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