Tom Gallagher

Many things fall into our lives that we weren't expecting. A TV show or movie we never thought we'd watch. A pet we'd never thought we'd have. A new kind of food we'd never heard of before. And somehow, we end up loving it. Sometimes we love it instantly, other times it grows on us, but the feeling is pretty much the same. It's like love at first sight, or a strong endearment. You never expected to have these feelings, yet here you are, and all because you saw that spark of something special. However, the beauty of this feeling comes from the unexpected. You WEREN'T expecting to feel this way. You WEREN'T planning for this development in your life. That's why these feelings are wonderful, and that's the only way it works. If you go looking for this feeling, if you try to force it or judge everything by whether or not you feel this strong emotion, it's just not going to work. You're just setting yourself up for disaster.

Think of it in terms of falling in love with a fellow human. Perhaps it was love at first sight. Maybe the two of you had something for a while, but eventually it ended. Well that's tough, but if you go looking for a brand new significant other, it would be wrong to judge everyone by whether or not you feel some kind of instant chemistry at first glance. That's an impossibly high standard. No one can live up to that. Emotions are fleeting, random, and sometimes misleading. You could not only get a false reading on someone, but at the same time, you could deprive yourself of having a fun time with someone else. Maybe the two of you were more compatible than you realized. Maybe you just deprived yourself out of some wonderful experiences that you would have loved. Now you're stuck on the outside looking in, wondering what could have been. Life is about more than what you might have a sudden or instant connect with.

So rather than placing you bets on experiencing magical, random, instantaneous feelings that only mother nature can control; let things happen naturally. Let things, people, and life speak for itself naturally. You may not like what you see at first, but dig under the surface a little, and you might find something you could grow to enjoy. Many people get lead astray when they start off or go in with unreasonable expectations. Rather than just living in the moment, they were looking something specific at the very beginning, and they get disappointed when it doesn't happen. But that's not life's fault, that not someone else's fault. Really, it's no one's fault but your own. I've done this a time or two myself. It's a hard lesson to learn, but it's important. No matter how much you might want it, you can't make an apple taste like an orange. You can't turn mud into diamonds. However, you can still have fun. Let apples be apples, let mud be mud, and just try to accept things for what they are. Forget about what you want for a brief moment. Switch your mind fame. New day, clean slate, no expectations.

If something still lets you down after all that, then it wasn't meant to be. But at least you can hold your head up proudly and say "I tried". There's nothing wrong with that. However, you just might find there's more to enjoy in this life than you ever expected.