Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

In the blink of an eye, everything can change. So forgive often and love with all your heart. You may never know when you may not have that chance again. Zig Ziglar

Our fortieth anniversary was yesterday, and we thought we should do something to celebrate. We took a couple of day trips this weekend, nothing spectacular. One day, we went East and saw the Peterborough lock system. This is a hydraulic lock; it took eight years to build and was finished in 1904. The boats come in on both sides, and then a foot of water is added at the top, and it goes down to the bottom, like a hydraulic teeter-totter. There are only eight in the world, and two are in Canada. What a feat of engineering.

The next day, we went west. There are a lot of towns and cities to visit, and we haven’t been big day trippers. We’ve been talking about it, but haven’t done it. The big trip to England and Paris hasn’t happened yet, but we have a Paris in Ontario.

Dinner in Paris sounded like a great idea. Maybe we didn’t know what to look at in the places we drove through because we didn’t stay long, and found ourselves in Paris long before dinner time. It’s a pretty little town, not as pretty as I was expecting, as some have said it is the prettiest town in Ontario. It sits on the Grand River and has some pretty lookouts, and a restaurant we wanted to eat at sits on the banks of the river with a lovely view. But, it was only two in the afternoon, we stopped into a new home showroom, and saw what they have on offer.  We walked through a little farmers’ market, down to the lookout, and we bought an ice cream. The girl serving us assured us we didn’t want the single scoop, it would be too big. Sure enough, we bought the kiddies cone, and it was a massive amount of ice cream. Too much ice cream never seems like a thing, but on a hot day, with it melting all over you, the larger cone would have been more of a mess, and the kiddie’s cone was bigger than a lot of double scoop cones we’ve had.

My husband looked at me and said, “You really want to eat there?”

The obvious question, “Where do you want to eat?”

“I think we should drive back to Elora, the first place we visited, and eat there.” So we did, Elora was the prettiest town we saw, it’s on the same Grand River and has a gorge we’d walked beside in the morning. When we got back, it was packed with people. We walked by a few restaurants and went back to the first one, which we liked best, had a wonderful dinner with an entertaining waitress, and drove home.

Life is what we make it. I see Facebook pictures of people living their best lives; it can make some of us feel our lives aren’t big enough, full enough, or fun enough. Comparisons are odious. What is the point of comparing ourselves to others? We don’t know their suffering, what brings them to their knees, and if we could swap our lives for theirs, we would have to give up something we truly love about our own lives.

There is a limit to the time assigned you, and if you don’t use it to free yourself it will be gone and will never return. Marcus Aurelius

Living our own lives, crossing off our own bucket lists, and making the most of the time we have with the people we love is what’s important. We never know what the next day will bring. Even our best laid plans may be altered. I still haven’t had dinner in Paris, and it’s okay because I think dinner in Elora was the better experience.

Forty years have gone by in a blink; we have choices ahead of us, until we don’t. We have to make the most of them. We’re not competing with someone else, but what do we want out of the next year, five, ten, or twenty years? What have we been putting off we need to deal with? What changes would make our lives better?

Those elephants we haven’t dealt with are still there, creating havoc; some of them will always be there. We might not see eye to eye on history, politics, religion, or the future. That isn’t likely to change, but none of those affects our relationships unless we let them. We have to agree to disagree, and it seems to me most of us want the same things: peace, prosperity, love, respect, a future for our children and great-grandchildren, and a society that works for all. Our ideas about how to get there differ and cause a lot of the problems.

Making the most of our lives, one day at a time, is what we can do. A merry heart doth the body good. We can try our best not to be contentious or argumentative. After all, what’s the point of arguing about the same old thing continuously and ending up more set in our opinions, yet upset with someone else about theirs?

There is so much to be grateful for, and when we are grateful for what we have, we get a better perspective on our lives. It might even give us space to make the changes we need to make, which, when we focus on what is missing, we somehow can’t manage.

When we have more years behind us than ahead of us, we need to be careful we don’t focus on the shoulda’s, coulda’s, and woulda’s. Instead, can we focus on what is still possible? What if it’s more than we might think?

Life is a cycle, always in motion, if good times have moved on, so will times of trouble. Indian proverb

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. Mark Twain

Life is precious, and there are no guarantees about how much time you have left. So, live each day to the fullest, take good care of yourself, and most importantly, be grateful for the chance to live another day. Unknown

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Painting by Belynda Wilson Thomas

Remember all frustration is based on unmet expectations. If we did not expect anything we would not be frustrated. John Lund

Plans rarely work out how we think, but planning is indispensable. If we don’t have a plan, how do we know where we want to go? But, don’t some of our best adventures happen when we veer from the plan? We go down a road we didn’t know existed, we explore something new, and we take a chance on something that turns out unexpectedly well?

We used to look at maps, and now I just plug something into my phone and out jumps what I want. But when we look at maps, we see places we want to go and things we want to see.

The computer is great for planning a trip, but last night, planning a little weekend getaway, or maybe it will only be a day trip, I finally pulled out my old map book to see how where we are thinking of going lines up on a map. Looking at that map, I could see how little we’ve seen of the province we live in.

We often think the adventure we want is a plane ride away; we need a passport and a hotel. We’ve been talking about day trips for a while; we even talked about travelling in a small motor home. But nothing has come of any of it.

There was a point when I said to my husband, “You know, we are the most boring couple.” We were at an anniversary celebration, and we didn’t get up and dance. The music wasn’t good enough. As guests, we were expected to help make the party fun.

Life is what we make it, marriage is what we make it, and adventure can be found anywhere. Do we have enough adventure in our lives? We probably have as much as we want, because we are in charge of the planning and implementation.

Sometimes things seem like such a bother, but when I make the effort, I always feel good about the result. Is it too much not bothering that creates a boring life? Sometimes our expectations are so high that the adventure can’t possibly be as good as we expect. Do unmet expectations play a big part in our dissatisfaction with life?

We thought things would be better and different. Maybe we thought if we spent enough money, we would receive whatever we think is missing in our lives? The chasm in our relationship would be bridged, but if we have a chasm in our relationship, why would we think going to a new place and spending lots of money would fix it?

We’ve all experienced the letdown of unmet expectations. An expected reward that fails to materialize is worse than a reward that was never anticipated in the first place. Anna Lembke

How do we get the life, relationship, and adventures we want? Jordan Peterson says, “You will never fix some of your problems. You can manage them.” I think he’s right. When we don’t see eye to eye on things, how can we fix that? We need to be willing to agree to disagree. It might seem incredible that someone doesn’t see what we see; it’s so evident, are they blind? I’m beginning to think it isn’t blindness, it is seeing through the lens of what they think is important. Some of us take a wider view of our society, and some take a smaller view; those two views can be at odds. But, aren’t we talking about the same thing? Not really, because if we are hanging onto the leg of the elephant in the room, and someone else sees the whole elephant, the conversation will seem like we aren’t talking about the same thing at all. If we happen to mention they aren’t taking a big or small enough view, how will that go?

We might think we need them to focus on the leg, and they think we need to see the whole elephant, but what if we need to realize there is more than one view of many issues? Is the problem thinking our view is the only one? Conversations come around to these contentious issues, but what if I learn how to worry more about what I can control than what I can’t?

Planning a weekend getaway or a day trip, I can do. Control where the conversation goes on said trip might not be so easy, but what if I learn to control my reaction to how someone else sees things and quit trying to get them to see things my way?

We must respond to the unmet expectations of life in ways that create solutions by finding ways to heal the wounds of letdowns and injustices. Rev Larry Kreider

The source of almost all conflict comes from unmet expectations. Brenda Hewitt

Anger always comes from frustrated expectations. Elliott Larson

Thank you for reading this post. Please come back and read more, and have a blessed day filled with gratitude, joy, and love.

To subscribe, comment, and see archives or categories of posts, click on the picture and scroll to the end.

Thank you for reading my books, and a special thank you to those who leave a review on Goodreads and Amazon. If you click on the Amazon link and purchase an item, I receive a small percentage of the sale through the Amazon affiliate program.