Keeping Up With Expectations?
During the holiday season, do you find yourself “buyin’ to keep from cryin’?” Or, if you’re not able to “buy like there’s no tomorrow,” does it get you down? The better question is do you allow or permit yourself to be down on such occasions? It’s not unusual if you do.
The season of good cheer is often a time of depression or illness for many. There are quite a few years that I recall catching a cold, or feeling less than my best, during the holidays. It’s easy to chalk it up to the change in seasons, but is that what was really going on?
A change of seasons, a drop in the temperature, or rain, or snow, is not an automatic harbinger of disease, whether we’re talking about the flu, or the common cold. However, being in low spirits, for whatever reason, increases our susceptibility to the germs, viruses, and toxic ideas, that are always swirling around us; factors that, most of the time, we simply pass through without being affected.
It seems that this time of the year… with all the holiday celebrations combined with the coming year end, provide a very large mirror in which to look at ourselves, and to take stock of where we are, in relation to where we see ourselves being in life. Oftentimes, we don’t like what we’re seeing.
The strong emphasis that is placed on giving in material ways at this time of the year puts added pressure on everyone, or I should say those who want to participate in the tradition. Even if we have few expectations as to what we want to receive, there’s still the hard to know expectations of those around us who are intent on “getting what they want” for the holidays, whatever that happens to be. And if you are a parent, spouse, or close friend, there is a sometimes unspoken but yet implied expectation that you’ll do your loved one’s proud.
How are you handling the holidays? What would you like the holidays to stand for?
However you’re doing it, my best wishes to you.
