I admit it: I like things to go my way. When a life experience starts to take a turn toward ridiculousness, I’m possessed by a sort of righteous arrogance. I deserve more from this experience and from my life, I often say.
It’s very frustrating, actually.
I accept only high-quality experiences from life, I tell those who are experiencing the nonsense right alongside me. So how can this be happening when I don’t have room in my life for this kind of thing?
Still, despite my frustrations, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my expectation of a life that features only high quality experiences, do you?
My requirement of only high-quality experiences was at the heart of my post a few weeks ago about the importance of creating rather than simply accomplishing.
Life’s too important, I say with my righteous arrogance showing, to waste time on the silliness of errands when I could be creating something grand — or at least accomplishing something more important.
Of course, there’s always something more important I could be doing, isn’t there? If you’re spending the day donating a kidney or freeing a dog from a well, perhaps you’re already getting the highest and best from your day, but what about the rest of us and our days?
Last week was wonderful for me because it was filled with compelling and interesting work on some projects that will grow in the future. But couldn’t I have done a bit more? Couldn’t I have focused on a higher goal so that I could have accomplished — that is, created — even more?
When I’m alone in my office, my expectation of only the highest quality experiences seems right. When there’s no one to please or consider but myself, I’m letting myself down if I do anything less than my best.
When I’m out in the world, however, I don’t control the other sides of my experiences. If a person who is supposed to be providing a service doesn’t, my reaction is all I can control. If the sound system is bad at a concert I attend (as it was last Thursday night), I’m free to leave (as I did last Thursday night).
The outcome is never really out of my control, is it?
Come to think of it, if I’m living a high-quality life, how could any experience that involves someone as high-quality as me be anything other than high quality?
I’m often disappointed because I only accept high-quality experiences from my life, and that may not be the simplest course of action. Settling for whatever comes along would be simpler.
But I strive for life that’s both simple and deliberate, and I’m deliberately seeking the best experiences from every moment of my life.
When I don’t see them in every moment of every day, could it be because I’m not looking? Or should I be trying harder to make the moment better?
Gip Plaster is a web content writer. Previously a journalist, online bookseller and even a corporate advertising guy, Gip now specialize in writing high-quality content for websites — his and other people’s. Learn more here.
Surely there has to be a balance between creating and having experiences to inform the creation. I see creating as a “breathing out” process. In order to “breathe out” you have to also “breathe in”. I’m also uncomfortable with this constant evaluation – for me its happiness and peace to realise that not everything has to have a point. In the end, its often been the things I’ve thought were the most pointless activities that have led to the greatest breakthroughs of my life.
I think everything adds or subtracts from our lives whether we recognize it or not. I spend lots of time in pointless activities, I think, but I don’t necessarily think that’s a good thing. High-quality experiences, however, are always good things.
Gip
I often need to remind myself that I have control of my decisions and my plans, but no control over the outcome. I can, with enough practice, even control my reaction to the outcome. In other words, Gip, all I can change is my actions and reactions. The rest is out of my hands.
Actions and reactions are all we control. I think that’s true.
I’d like to stay off-grid as much as possible to reduce the likelihood that I will have a bad reaction. And I like to place myself in a position to have good experiences as often as possible.
Slow week here on the blog, so I’m especially glad you’re here this week!
Gip