Expectation, affirmations
and the New Year editorial

My father called on Christmas. He was working.

“Working?” I said. “People are there on Christmas?” (My father manages numerous commercial ski rentals in Killington, Vermont.)

I told him it must run in the family because I had an editorial to write by the next morning. I just couldn’t write a New Year’s editorial before Christmas, I explained. “I’m thinking about expectations. How life would be so much easier without expectations,” I said.

He told me about a sermon he had heard some 43 years ago called The Second Christmas. “It was about Mary’s expectations for Jesus’ first birthday. She had thought that the celebration of his first birthday would be equally as grand as his birth. But there were no wise men and no star in the East. She was sorely disappointed.”

Living by expectations reminded him of the Peggy Lee song ‘Is this all there is?’ “It’s the process of going to college that is the joy, not the piece of paper you get at the end. The things that we remember are our accomplishments,” he said.

“I remember taking you kids to the World’s Fair. At the AT&T exhibit, there was a case that had 10 to15 items that I had designed—different solid circuitry boards. I remember standing in front of that case saying, ‘I did that. I designed that.’ There was no expectation—just flat-out surprise.”

I brought up the question at dinner.

“It would be so much better to live without expectations,” daughter Anna said. “Then you would not be disappointed because something that you thought was going to be great turned out to be just okay.”

“It’s not possible,” son Zachary said. “You can’t not have expectations. And how would that be, you would always be settling for whatever happened.”

“Expectations, not aspirations,” I explained.

“Now you’ve lost me,” guest John said.

I floated my second idea.

“Do you think that it would be more effective to make affirmations for the New Year, as opposed to resolutions?” I asked. “Affirmations have a power to create positive thinking and dispel negative belief systems. Resolutions take a lot of will power, which according to the late Lawrence H. Cooke, is missing from our modern American culture,” I said.

“Perhaps,” was the consensus of those around the table.

So there you have it—two thoughts for the New Year, written this Christmas night.

Do our expectations serve to bring harmony into our lives, and, if we want to change would we be better off developing some affirmations, rather than trying to exert our will with a resolution?

Hopefully in a week’s time and a little more time off—with no expectations but good snacks on New Year’s Eve—we will have the leisure to reflect on the joy of sharing accomplishments, thoughts, stories and the love of families this holiday season.

I wish for you a healthy, peaceful and loving 2002.

Laurie Stuart, Editor