Unexpected

Last year was a year of music for us. I didn’t think this year would be anything close. Unexpectedly, it is turning out quite nice. Earlier this year, my wife and I caught some shows, one I had longed to see and one my wife had wanted to see. I thoroughly enjoyed both, although admittedly, I was not exactly excited about the one my wife had desired to see. While I knew I would be excited for the one I had wanted to see, I didn’t expect my wife to enjoy herself as much as she did. With “her” show, we were blown away with both performances.

Both turned out amazingly!

Last night, we were fortunate enough to have had the opportunity to catch the Knoxville Symphony Orchestra with Joyce Yang, pianist. One of my son’s instructors is a percussionist, and we were excited to see him perform. While I thought it would be a good show, I was really blown away.

These examples are positive ones. Unfortunately, there are some unexpected experiences that are not positive.

Earlier in the year, it snowed more than it has since we moved here. In fact, UTK closed, which really doesn’t happen often. The snow itself was not an issue per se; our aged gutters and their strength were.

We changed dentists again. While we had hoped for a more positive experience, which we got, what we were not expecting were the number of issues we will have to pay to fix.

When we have expectations, sometimes they’re buried and difficult to recognize. We think something will go a certain way. When they don’t, it leads us to negative thoughts and emotions. Sometimes, these patterns of thinking and behaving can take us back to early childhood traumas and past experiences. It can be so automatic that it bypasses our awareness.

The more we bring these things into our awareness, the greater the chance we have of making changes. I see these instances as habits of thinking and responding. Habits are so challenging they can be hard to break and hard to make (and keep). I believe the more we are aware and make efforts to do something different, the easier it becomes. The draw/pull is to keep doing things as we’ve always done. When the change doesn’t come easily, we might give up and keep doing things as we always have.

But, the more we try and notice (that is, become aware of) our successes, the easier it gets to keep going. We have to keep going, though. We keep making these incremental efforts to do something different, and consistently over time, we develop a new way of doing things.

Something unexpected will happen. Our awareness and continued efforts to do something new will lead us to a different way of responding.

Life, after all, is unexpected.

#Jesus #habit #effort #change #awareness #life #expectations #thoughts #feelings #newways