Thursday, July 24, 2008

Not What You Were Expecting

Today's exercise for myself is to subvert expectations, watch my expectations be subverted, or notice the capacity for subverted expectations. The other day, I took my daughter to buy a white garment to dye in her batik class and I suggested a polo shirt. She thought that batiking a polo shirt was weird and I tried to explain to her that is was cool because it subverted expectations. She wasn't interested in hearing it at that point.

In a couple of weeks we are going to be taking my daughter to visit her Kansas City relatives and my father-in-law suggested we meet in Des Moines and find something fun to do there. Fun. In Des Moines. Now, I'm not a big cosmopolitan snob, but I've driven through Des Moines more times than I can count and we couldn't even find a good place for lunch there. Everyone else has seemed to have a lot more enthusiasm for this than I have.

Desperately, I turned to the internet only to discover that there are something like 5 or 6 historical homes to tour. You have to understand, we all have our own nerdy buttons (I think I have more than the average) and historical home tours is a big one for me. So now, I'm the one who's all worked up about the historic homes.

Also, the Des Moines Art Center is housed in a building designed by (NERD ALERT) Eliel Saarinen with additions by Richard Meier and I.M. Pei. Okay, I'm sold.

Having our expectations subverted is a wonderful exercise in recognizing:
  • Our attachment to our ideas and investment in them
  • How our preconceptions take us out of living in the present as we make decisions about how things will be – a recipe for having them disrupted either for the better or worse

So, today (and maybe all week) I will notice when I have expectations, when I can let go of them, and when they are subverted (as well as making an effort to gently subvert them in others).

I want to hear about your experience with your expectations being subverted (or subverting others). Hey guys! I'm dying for a conversation here!
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1 comment:

Unknown said...

Fun. In Des Moines. Yeah, right! I too have been to Des Moines way too many times and agree that fun is not easy to come by and good food is hard to find, too. Impossible, actually, if you use my experience. There is a decent (not stellar, but decent) Mexican restaurant near Waukee. I think its called Los Trei Amigos (or something like that). Take Hickman Road (which is an exit or 2 north of where I80 crosses I35) west for 10 minutes or so. It's in a strip mall, on the north side of the road, kind of across the street from McDonalds (which is generally way too easy to find in this world). Hope that helps.

They used to have an conservatory that was nice. Someplace toward downtown.

July 26, 2008 at 6:03 PM

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