Nuki News #97 - Our Failures

I know I said I probably wouldn’t do another more broad-topic sort of NukiNews posts, but this week had me thinking about this topic. There’s a lot of ‘failure’ we have to deal with in our lives. We fail to meet expectations, which is usually what failure pertains to. Expectations of ourselves, of others, or what others have of us. At times we don’t even realize there were expectations to begin with, which tends to cause conflict between people due to a breakdown of communication.

We can’t expect ourselves to be perfect, and we can’t expect others to be perfect either. If we did, we’d lead very miserable lives and spread misery to those around us. You may live by or know someone who proclaims they like to ‘keep expectations low’. But the problem with that is we’ll still suffer disappointment- in ourselves or others.

I’ve been learning more over the last few years that not having expectations to begin with has been the better route. It doesn’t mean settling or never having any expectations whatsoever. But I’ve found we may have expectations subconsciously that don’t actually fit our reality, or are so arbitrary that, if we stopped to question them, we’d realize they have no purpose for us.

I’ve been working to become more aware of those unhelpful expectations. And recognize when expectations of(Or for) others aren’t fair or reasonable. The way I’ve done it has been through meditation and keeping myself focused. Doing this can also help uncover why an expectation exists, which is helpful to filter out the bad ones.

So with that in mind, always remember each person is working with knowledge and skills they currently have. Our brains are doing a ton of stuff every moment, and we’ve all found our thoughts jumbled and not prioritized in an order we’d like.Your mind slips up and you forget that the trash needed taking out, or that you committed yourself to an event tomorrow evening until the day-of. A strategy we use to help keep track of our expectations or improvements is through planning and goal setting. But whether or not we carry it out depends heavily on our emotional state and mental state. I’m typing this up the day before posting, as I’ll be away from my home for a bit! But I gotta tell ya, I don’t wanna write a Nukinews post. It’d be nicer to relax or focus on something else. I do it, though, because it’s something I’ve built a structured habit out of, and have been doing it for the last few years. When I started I had the expectation of becoming better at articulating my thoughts, and being better with my words, and helping a past version of myself with advice to think about.

I have no idea if I succeeded at those things, you would have to tell me. But, it has kept me consistent and committed to trying anyway. Of course, these posts will be stopping soon, though I am glad I did try- I don’t consider writing a strong suit, but writing what I know personally is what I *can* do. Even if I did “Succeed” here in my goal, overall it hasn’t actually helped me with the bigger picture of growing my patreon page, as it felt too personal to share or promote to people. So those of you who have been reading these posts over the last 2 years or so, thank you, I hope at least one of these have helped you in some way, big or small! <3

Next week, I’ll ideally be drawing out an example page of my Sumo Sketchbook project for you all to see and enjoy! So look forward to that. :)