You’re Not Having a Bad Day; You Just Have Expectations That Are All Screwed Up

Let me say right up front, I would qualify as an Apple fan boy.  One of my best buddies, Dave Seldon, loves aggravating me about this fact.  And I think that’s why I love him so much, and why I’m praying that one day he’ll get “saved.”  Ha ha!

The Apple iPhone 4 was announced last week to be released in a few weeks.  And the litany of things it can do boggles the mind.  From the display, to the HD movie camera, to iBooks, on and on and on the list can go.  And yet what do I hear in all the reviews and blogs?  Not what was put in and how well it was done, but about what was left out.  Complaining, moaning, and I can even say the word that begins with “B”, but you get the point.

You may say, “Why are you wasting my time talking about this?” because the iPhone, even if you don’t have one, is ruining your life along with Apple and Google, and IBM, and Honda, Toyota, and every other company that creates remarkable products, seemingly out of thin air.  Our expectation for technology, what it can do, and maybe more importantly, what it should do is unreasonable, irrational, and off the charts.

Unreasonable, irrational, out of the ballpark expectations when applied to our lives make us miserable. We think that the same thing that works with my iPhone – turn it on and it just works – can be applied to my life. I just get up, do the right things, and all the right things will happen.  Add to that religion, which says that if I do the right things God will open the gates of heaven.  And you can see the evidence in the money, the blessing, and the help, and you get my point.

The problem with technology and religion is they always disappoint. But the great thing with religion that technology doesn’t share is that when you’re disappointed with religion, it’s always your fault.  Ain’t that cute.

Let’s forget that for a minute and talk about your marriage.  Marriage is hard.  I’ve done a video blog about that just the other day.  Go back and find it: “Why is Marriage so Hard?” Relationships are hard.  Life is hard. Even Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble.”  But we act as though it shouldn’t be that way, and that there is a magic formula.

Here is my point: you’re not having a bad life; you’ve just got weird expectations. Take those expectations down and align them with reality.  You will have good, you will have bad, and if you do the right things you’ll have more good than bad.  But life is worth it.  Get up every day and face life as it is, not as you think it ought to be. Do that with joy, enthusiasm, and fun, and some amazing things can happen.  But make sure your expectations are reasonable; high, but reasonable.

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