expectations – Chloe J Sayers

In A World of Pure Imagination

Faith, hope, & love. These three easily recognizable Christian virtues from 1 Corinthians 13:13 are also widely valued as human characteristics that benefit ourselves and our society. All 3 require an element of imaginative thinking. To have faith, we must believe in a God bigger than ourselves and our own limited conceptions. We hope in a future and eternity that we do not physically see, but must imagine. We love others best when we imagine them as God sees them–immeasurably valued and worthy of glorification through Christ.

Imagination enriches our lives in many other ways too. Getting lost in a book, dreaming up new businesses, playing make believe with a child. But when imagination gets misplaced into the hands of an idealist, things get messy.

Idealism sounds nice but has some fairly nasty side effects. At it’s essence, idealism is the practice of forming expectations about the way the world should operate, especially unrealistically (the dictionary’s words, not mine). When we start projecting our idealism on a very real world, we set ourselves up for disappointment at best and destruction at worst.

My imaginative ideas about what makes the world better might not actually be good or wise. Or even if I do happen to strike on a good vision of what the world ought to look like, the way I go about forcing my will on reality will probably hurt others in the process.

But what happened to our hope, our faith, and our love? Don’t those require some idealism?

Not necessarily. We need our imaginations to develop our virtues and we need optimism to live out those virtues in this often confusing and hard life. But idealism and optimism are not the same thing.

The optimist is full of hope for the future whereas the idealist insists that the future fit their vision. The optimist seeks ways to make the world a kinder place while the idealist works to make the world their kind of place.

Well-intentioned optimists can easily become dangerous idealists when imagination is misplaced. Living in a country where I don’t speak the language has taught me that the hard way. Things never go as planned and insisting on forcing my vision inevitably leads to frustration. I’m slowly learning to redirect my imagination and view this world with optimism instead of idealism. It’s a process for us perfectionists but I believe it’s worth it.

The last installment of my Misplaced series will hit the blog next week! It’s about one of my favorite topics–budgeting and personal finance. Thanks for following along so far!

Adventure, Change, People, Travel

Not A Travel Blog

When asked what I write about on my blog, I always respond with a tentative “lifestyle things?” although I don’t really know what that means. I started writing here 8 years ago and since I’m free from all pressures of monetizing the site, I’ve never defined my genre. Content marketing has a powerful gravitational pull and I’d like to keep this corner of the Internet free of all gimmicks, content gating, and gotchas.

What I do know is that this is not a travel blog. My husband and I currently call Saint Petersburg home and we hope to travel more than we normally would over the next few years, but this will still be my place to share my musings on the world around me, which just happens to be in Russia right now.

Moving to Saint Petersburg has felt like becoming a child again. I’m slowly sounding out words on buildings as we walk by them, am fascinated by the bright colors of the buildings and parks, and it takes so much longer to do simple tasks than it feels like it ought to. Just charging my phone is a 3 apparatus ordeal. And there is the child-like wonder to it as well. New sights and sounds amaze me and each day is a new adventure as we explore the town, transportation system, and shops.

New Holland Art Installation

Church on the Spilled Blood

Alexander’s Park

Daily life here so far is very similar to life in the States on a large scale, and very different in many minuscule ways throughout the day. The downsized toilet paper and circle electrical plugs, for example. Differences that are neither bad nor good, just different. These small changes were threatening to throw me off-kilter (is this what they call culture shock?) until I read this passage from C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet:

It was only days later that Ransom discovered how to deal with these sudden losses of confidence. They arose when the rationality of the hross [a being from a different planet] tempted you to think of it as a man. Then it became abominable–a man seven feet high, with a snaky body, covered, face and all, with thick black animal hair, and whiskered like a cat. But starting from the other end you had an animal with everything an animal ought to have–glossy coat, liquid eye, sweet breath and whitest teeth–and added to all these, as though Paradise had never been lost and earliest dreams were true, the charm of speech and reason. Nothing could be more disgusting than the one impression; nothing more delightful than the other. It all depended on the point of view.

By no means am I suggesting that Russians are extraterrestrials, rather, I’m realizing more and more how similar we all are. But moving to a foreign country can feel like an other-worldy experience and I’ll drive myself crazy if I’m finding the small differences “disgusting” instead of appreciating things for how they actually are and finding the similarities delightful. As Lewis put it best: It all depends on the point of view.

I’m a big believer in dreaming and doing but reality is a strong force to be reckoned with. Our expectations about what reality should look like often cause us to be disappointed when life doesn’t deliver. I’d rather rejoice in the ways it gives me joy instead of constantly comparing reality to what I think it ought to look like and ending up feeling like everything is just a little bit (or a lot a bit) off.

Change, Friendship, Happiness, Life Lessons, Pain

Things To Remember

Every once in a while, I make a list of the things in life that I hold strongly to. Some of them are based on experiences and wisdom from those around me. Like many things in my life, a lot of them are rather arbitrary but I still cling to them quite tightly just to spite their lack of quantification.

I am not ultimately in control of my life or who I am.

Happiness is not our main goal here.

Life is not falling apart; it was never all together to begin with.

Life is an adventure.

It’s going to be okay.

Expectations will kill you.

So kill them first.

The times that I am the worst are the times that I am spending the most time thinking about myself.

We are never alone.

There is no point in needless sadness.

But it’s okay to be sad sometimes.

There are always decisions to be made, we just don’t take the time to realize we are making them.

There is much to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!