The 3 Evil E’s: Expectations, Egos, & End Games

And, why Pinterest is great for interior design, fashion, and recipes...but, not for mapping out your life.

This summer, Ben started laying down the law: if we wanted to go to our favorite breakfast spot, The Stand, on the Cape every Sunday, we all needed to participate in “Sunday Run Day” beforehand. “Participation” basically means the kids bike around us while we run. Since Ben is a far faster runner than myself, it means we’re running at the same time, just not even always on the same route…and, definitely not next to each other.

We also differ on the topic of whether you “should” be listening to something on headphones or if you should be connecting with your thoughts or with nature, instead. I’m on the headphones team, he’s on the inner thoughts team.

One Sunday, I was doing the wifely thing of listening to his Chasing Excellence podcast when he started talking about our “Sunday Run Day”. I was like, “HA! I’m in the middle of Sunday Run Day…listening to him talk about how we’ve been doing this very thing!” I was like YAY ME.

Until he started condemning people who listen to headphones while they’re doing long, slow runs. I, in my very Heather-like way, got very defensive and made it clear to him after that I think he’s out of line telling people how they should spend their headspace time during Zone 2 workouts.

He did his subtle-smile, non-verbal response thing that means he thinks I’m wrong, and he’s right, but he doesn’t feel like entertaining my push-back any longer. So, I took that as a win, even though I knew after a week I’d likely realize he was, in fact, “right”.

Regardless of where I settled with that disagreement a week later, I did end up listening to a Call Her Daddy podcast in which Alex Cooper was interviewing Kate Hudson, one of my life-long favorites in the celebrity world. After listening to most of that interview, I paused it and decided to take my prescribed time “connecting with my thoughts” on some of what Hudson was speaking to.

By the time I had finally met up with Ben and the kids at The Stand, I had pulled together what I had coined in my head as “The 3 Evil E’s: Egos, Expectations, and End Games.” These are 3 things that I feel severely limit our level of happiness; they’re 3 things that leave us endlessly walking around wishing and wanting more than we already have. 

I think the skeptic in me would kick back to this idea with, “But, what’s so wrong with wanting more? If you stop wanting more out of life, aren’t you just settling?” Which is a fair question.

I think the turning point is when the wishing and wanting starts fogging the mirror so much that you begin simultaneously overlooking the magic and greatness of what the universe has already gifted you with.

Egos

This one’s pretty obvious. I think, though, the important thing to remember is this: ego is not part of who we “are”. 

Our ego is just a collection of thoughts we create that protect us from feeling disappointment in ourselves. 

Given that ego is self-created, it’s also something that we can UNdo with a lot of awareness, digging up of our “stuff” that got us to where we are today, and a ton of pulling up our big girl panties (or, manning up…or, whatever verbage you want to use) to own the fact that we’re (a) not perfect, (b) not always right, (c) and we’re not “entitled” to have the world and everything in it behave the way we’d like it to.

Expectations

I love Pinterest. Or, at least I did back when it was mostly a bunch of bulletin boards of other people’s creative ways of doing things that you could use as inspiration: how to organize a book shelf with plants and grouping different colored bindings, how to style sneakers with a dress and not look like a mom wanting to look like her teenage daughter, or how to cut a watermelon into a fruit shark for your next party appetizer. I’ve, honestly, done all of these things and people were like, “Dammmnnn, girl, you’re like a walking Pinterest post!” And, I walk away somehow feeling like Martha Stewart…before she went to jail.

This IS going somewhere with regards to expectations. I swear.

But, I think a lot of us grow up subconsciously pinning all of these ideas of what we want our lives to look like “some day”.

One of my boards was for the moms I would be besties with that would have kids the same ages as mine and we’d all host girls nights and drive our kids around to the same activities because they’d all be besties, too, and into the exact same things. And, our husbands would all be besties and we’d all go away together and stay in a huge house together and we’d all have houses next door to each other on the Cape and we’d walk into each other’s homes without knocking because we were all besties.

Another board was for what I’d look like: all of my awesome messy buns, my natural make up look that would take less than 90 seconds to pull together and make me look like I just woke up looking like that, and my lounge wear outfits that would make me look hip and stylish but would be so super comfy to drive carpools in and stand around at kids sporting events…with all of my besties because all of our kids were, remember, playing the same sports at exactly the same time.

I was going to write another example of another board, but I feel like you get the idea…and, I’m getting more superficial by the second with this section.

But, all of these “pins” create a life full of expectations…THAT NEVER END UP LIKE THAT.

A lot of the mom friends you start out with end up having kids even just 1 year off yours, your kids don’t like hanging out together, and your husbands don’t want anything to do with your mom-friends’ husbands.

And, unfortunately, I DO walk around looking exactly the way I woke up…but, with a mess of thin hair in a hair tie, no make up…like, not even lip gloss, because I didn’t leave enough time to wipe anything on my face, and I’m wearing the same damn outfit that I keep throwing on the chair in my bedroom after I workout and shower…but, it’s a black t-shirt and black shorts because I can get away with going commando in that whole thing without most people noticing. And, it at LEAST matches.

Expecting all of that to happen is so unrealistic, but for some reason we dream up these ideas and are disappointed when it doesn’t roll out like that.

End Games

Here’s the harsh truth: as much as I love Tay Tay’s version, there’s no such thing as End Games. There just isn’t. Nothing is a done deal, a sure thing, a complete check mark on your list of things to do so you can forget about it and move onto the next thing.

Things are set in motion, for sure. But, every thing needs checks, balances, attention, nurturing, work, and rechecking, rebalancing, etc. This goes for everything from graduating from school to getting married to landing a job to sending your kids off to college. If you really want to live your best life, no thing is a “set it and forget it” situation.

Which, while it seems a dark and exhausting thought, it actually makes things magical and exciting if you can just reframe life as a Never-Ending Game full of unegos, unexpectations, and plot twists that help us unlearn things we once found comfort in knowing and understanding.

Living a life of comfort may feel easier in the moment, but is far harder to live with if you’re forever wondering how much better life could’ve been if you had lived beyond your pre-determined “End Game”.