My little girl turns five years old today.
Happy Birthday, B!
You are the best little girl in the whole world. It’s true. You know how I know? Your mommy told me and she’s always right.
The First Expectation
The first approximation of others is ourselves. In other words, the expectations we have for others in any given situation or environment, in lieu of those being expressly stated or agreed upon, are largely guided by those we set for ourselves. An example being that, if we are always punctual to appointments then we expect others to do the same and get quite perturbed when they are not. The less punctuality is important to you personally, in general the less bothered you will be when others also fail to meet this goal. This is something I have come to term the First Expectation and it is something I encounter and dwell on quite a bit for i believe that it is, in fact, one of the building blocks of any creed or belief system.
I feel it helpful to remember that how we treat ourselves when we fall short is also important. The more forgiveness and empathy we have with ourselves when we fail to meet our own first expectations should inform the measure we use to treat others. In the Christian tradition, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” is an idea embodied by the first expectation — and the empathy, forgiveness, and compassion contained therein 1. The idea being, in part, that if one lives and does these things, if they set this at the core of their expectations for themselves, it will also set an expectation for others to do the same.
Such things are far too often out of sync. Either we are far too hard on ourselves and have more liberal expectations of others or the opposite is true. Let us, instead, sit in empathy on all sides, open paths to communication that makes our first expectations clear, and mindfully listen and understand those of others.
-
In other more simple terms, in order to love another as one loves themselves then it is important to love oneself first so that we may set a bar in our love for others. If one does not hold themselves in kindness and respect, how does one hope to hold others accordingly? ↩
I See London, I See France
I warned you that this week may hold less of the regular material I write here and more of the “My Family Vacation” sort and so, well, here it is.
Spent the Disney day at Epcot today. Got there about a half hour before the park opened. The crowds were pretty light which worked out really well. Almost everyone headed for The Land pavilion due to some hot new attraction there. We headed to The Seas and had the place virtually to ourselves for at least a full hour. The story time with Crush was funny and very well done. The Nemo ride was pretty good too. But, the highlight, was the dolphin tank.
As, stated, when we first entered we were the only ones there. We went up to the glass and, a few seconds later, one of the dolphins swam by and I threw him a little wave. Well, he saw it and immediately turned tail and came nose up to me, Bethany and Beatrix at the glass and smiled. Then, he swam away and came back with his four other dolphin friends who put on a show right at the glass just for us literally inches from our face. At this point one of the trainers came out and told us their names. He let us know that they not only saw us but could hear us talking, that they knew we were talking about them, and that they were, in fact, showing off for us. This went on for a full 20 minutes. It was magical.
The rest of the day was spent in the World Showcase. This is the section of he park where they have designed highly realistic and idealized reproductions of various countries. A good chunk of our time here was spent in the England and France areas because of the high percentage of Princess meet and greets. Beatrix got a chance to see and have her picture taken with Snow White, Cinderella, Belle, Alice, Mary Poppins, and her favorite of all, Rapunzel. Basically checking all of her favorites off of the list. Big win.
Once again, the attention to detail and the level of customer service and quality can’t be overstated. Even the various “countries” are staffed by people from those actual countries. Very impressive all around.
Tomorrow, we will spend the day in Animal Kingdom and see the Cirque du Soleil show La Nouba in the evening (and have a backstage tour arranged there) should be a great day.