Expectations

{warning: very, very old picture}

Say hello to my family trio: my mother and my sister (whom you already know and love).  Today, I'm going to get a little personal...

The family unit you see here is the family I grew up with every single day until my mom remarried in 2001.  Throughout my entire life, my mom has been our rock.  She worked hard to give us what we needed in life - which when you're young you always think you want more right?  But I'm grateful that I always had what I needed, the constant love and support from her and my sister. 

So what I'm getting at here, is that my mom has been my source of advice and direction my whole life.  One very big piece of advice she gave me was this: Be careful, and don't get your hopes up.  Just believe it when you see it.  This might sound negative, cynical even.  But it's not.  To be quite honest, it has been the best piece of advice I've received in my 24 years of living. 

Growing up I had a tendency to trust everything everyone said, and I mean everything.  If you told me a story, made me a promise, whatever the case may be, I believed every single word of it.  And then when your story or promise fell flat, I was utterly shocked and heartbroken.  This piece of advice helped me get out of my high expectation rut, and start letting people prove to me that their word means something... and I was reminded of this piece of advice today with this quote:

The higher the expectations, the lower the serenity. I try to keep my boundaries high, my expectations low, and my heart open.

This explains perfectly my outlook on life.  I keep my boundaries high to protect myself; my expectations low so as to not get my hopes up; but my heart is open so that I'm still keeping myself open to the opportunities of great things.  And I believe it has served me well. 

What great piece of advice has gotten you through most of your life?