Thwarted Expectations

She was trying her best not to cry. But it was obvious to my boss, myself and the mediator that she was on the inside. It was the culmination of two years of expecting a better result in her case violently crashing to earth. She would impress a jury, had legitimate injuries, but her case wasn't the strongest.

After hours of the mediator gently rubbing off the gold-coating of her case, only the mediocre metal of truth remained. Her case simply wasn't worth what she had believed it was for so long. But what happened next was admirable. She sucked it up, put on a straight face and was able to make a sound decision and put aside emotion.

And yet how often we all build our expectations, sometimes extremely lofty ones for good reason. Hoping for the best. We naturally feel disappointed when the end result looks nothing like what we though it would. 

I'm in the same situation as my client. I thought something would happen by now. It hasn't. I set a timetable in my mind and was forced to throw it out the window. It's frustrating. There's a smart quote about patience to be inserted here.

Flexibility is an attribute I haven't quite fully developed yet. Perhaps like my client I need to suck it up, remove emotion and just move forward.