I am in a book club currently that focuses on works of anti-racism and in our last meeting, one participant said to me, “I think we missed all the warnings and the signals and the signs and it’s too late for our country. It’s just too late.”
I was taken aback by this because I am someone that consistently believes in the good of humankind and the ability of people’s minds to change. If I didn’t, I would be completely incapacitated and unable to do any of the work in the world that promotes change because I would believe it’s a lost cause.
I am highly aware of the fact that we are in a pandemic and that expecting the best is really not what people are thinking about these days. But expecting the best isn’t just a saying. It’s a mindset and a belief that what we put out, we get back. So, if I’m here dishing out joy and expectations of a beautiful world, I start to take action to bring more joy into my life and more beauty, equality, and goodness into the world.
Sometimes even when we put this energy out, expecting the best, it doesn’t work out. I know this for a fact because I was told the absolute worst-case scenario when my Daddy was indicted is that he would get three months of prison time. I still, hearing that, expected much less than that and spent years believing it wouldn’t ever be that bad. Well, when it came down to it, my Daddy was sentenced to two years imprisonment. Yeah, that was a whole hell of a lot worse than any of my expectations, but we all made it through because we can handle disappointment better than we give ourselves credit for. If I had spent years leading up to my Daddy’s sentencing thinking he would be going to prison I would have been miserable for years as opposed to managing my sadness and disappointment when it came down to the reality we were going to have to deal with. It would not have hurt any less if I had been expecting it. It would have just made me sad for longer.
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So, I will keep on expecting the best. In the world. In people. In our ability to heal this country. In our ability to be better, kinder, more accepting, and loving humans. I will mitigate my disappointments along the way and then I will pick back up and continue expecting the best so that I can work on helping create a world I believe in.
Happy day, friends, I love you. XOXO, CAMDW
PS I sent this post to my Daddy for his approval before I blasted his story on the internet, and along with his approval, he gave me my new favorite quote: “worrying about something never changes the outcome…it changes the moment.” Try that one on for size.
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