the view around these parts, lately.
compromise. such a great concept in theory, something altogether different in practice. living in nyc is a never ending exercise in compromise. the apartment's great? well, the neighborhood's probably not so great. what's that, the rent's reasonable, borderline too good to be true? ding ding, it probably is! this dining table that you'll probably never find again that's yours for a song and dance? well, you'll have to pass on that too because having any amount of space in this city to put a dining table in is like finding diamonds in a coal mine; probably not altogether impossible, but highly, highly improbable.
(disclaimer: that dining table example? totally did not happen to me a few weeks ago...nope, not at all ;).
i'm immensely thankful to live in an age where we have access to so many great resources handed to us on a silver platter and where it's incredibly easy to connect with amazingly inspiring people that i otherwise would never have had the pleasure of meeting, but i often think about the effect that it's had on expectations...namely, inflating them to sometimes unrealistic levels. levels which then lead to unrealistic consequences, when those expectations aren't met. a few examples - we dive headfirst into a spiral of despair, of heartbreak, of thinking something must be wrong with us, that we're the ones who must not be good enough yet everyone else is super duper great (ok, dramatic examples yes, but i hope it's obvious i'm not speaking from personal experience here, right? ;) .
i realize i'm probably playing the world's tiniest fiddle here, to some degree. i've been one of the lucky ones - i've made some amazing connections over instagram and twitter who have moved on to become real life friends, but such double edged swords are these tricky little guys. instagram has grown to be an amazing community of such kind, generous and amazing people, but right around the corner from all that good lurks the bad, too. it's much too easy to get caught up in what everyone else is doing and what you're not, everyone else's success and your seemingly lack thereof, everyone's great travel adventures and your involuntary house arrest, the list goes on and on...and it's this, these thoughts here, that spiral we were talking about earlier? yeah, you can see where i'm headed. i realize it's wrong. i realize it's totally unhealthy. and absurd. and unfortunately too easy a path to choose. we are our own worst critic goes the saying, but the adage is exponentially worse this day in age when all you're surrounded with are reasons to judge yourself harshly (and unjustly so), and a million points of comparisons against others that's probably best likened to comparing apples to oranges; yeah sure, we might be all fruit at the end of the day, but everyone's situation is different. well, it's exhausting. and i'm done. yes, it's slow going, learning to manage my expectations one day at a time, but just like compromise, realizing it's a great concept in theory but an even harder thing to achieve in practice makes the practice all the more worth it.
