🐥The Paradox of Now #35

Andy Murray Who?

Ciao Dashing Ducks!

This week I’ve been trying to play pickleball against some of the best in Europe, with trying being the operative word.

Like anything, there are levels to what you get involved in, and the standard at European level is some of the toughest I’ve ever seen.

Anyone who watched the men’s final live on centre court would have walked away wanting to grab a paddle. I don’t care who you are. That’s sport at its very best.

Up until now, the greatest sporting thing I’d ever seen live was Andy Murray against Thanasi Kokkinakis at the Australian Open in Melbourne, a match that went until 4am!

But somehow, watching the men’s pickleball final in Rome topped still managed to top that - that’s how good it was!

Now let me give you a taste of what's coming:

🐥 Where the future of writing online already exists
🐥 Expectations of a fat younger me
🐥 Do you remember memories?

🥚Eggstra News🥚

Your weekly dose of some fascinating and fun finds:

📝 Substack – Social media for writers. Some of the best-kept secrets live here. I post on it too.

🧠 Sam Harris – A thinker who splits opinion. But his ideas always make me pause and consider.

🤹Mike Boyd – He learnt. I learnt. Now I juggle. Thanks Mike

The Paradox of Now

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Unspoken Expectations

I have achieved so much in my life.

However, what I have failed to achieve is any self-efficacy or belief despite the evidence to the contrary. What I have failed to achieve is the wisdom to deeply enjoy the simple things. What I have failed to achieve is the knowledge that I have already achieved goals that I said would make me happy…

And yet here I am.

So why do I still feel stuck, even when I know all these things?

Maybe it began in childhood, when people expected me to be brilliant. Clever. Destined. And I’ve never quite lived up to it.

An invisible weight crushing down on me.

I remember sitting in a job interview and being asked:

Maybe that’s where it comes from.

Because now, for the first time, I’m committing to things. Too many things, probably. And yet it feels like I’m getting nowhere.

Meanwhile, there are people in situations 100 times harder than mine who seem to be doing 1000 times better.

So what aspects of my life do I have to pause and reflect on?

I don’t really drink. I am fortunate to have good health and don’t really live for the weekend. I stay in on Saturdays writing newsletters, such as this one, while others are out in the sun, enjoying that “last days of summer” feeling. And sometimes it feels like dread, like I am wasting it.

It’s a privileged struggle, I know. But struggle is always relative.

And this is where the guilt sets in. The guilt of privilege. The guilt of expectation.

There’s a quote that I would like to use to help me unpick this:

Now this usually applies to relationships with others and is worth taking a moment to reflect on the following if yours in the past have faltered.

Think about something simple, like expecting your partner to always text you goodnight. You never say it out loud, but in your head it becomes a rule. The night they fall asleep early and forget, you lie awake resenting them for something they did not even know mattered.

That is the danger. The resentment builds, not because they did anything wrong, but because you carried an invisible expectation they never agreed to.

And that is where I have realised I have done the same thing to myself. I have held unspoken expectations from the younger version of me. Expectations about who I was meant to become, what I was meant to achieve, how far I should be by now. Invisible rules I never spoke out loud but could always feel.

Which is why I sometimes end up not being a good friend to myself.

Not all the time and not to a large extent. For the most part I love myself and who I am. But I have not enjoyed the person I’ve been at times because I believed he never lived up to his potential.

It’s dangerous, this line between reflection and rumination. Journalling and writing can help, but it can also become a trap if you’re not careful. The work is in learning when to stop spiralling, when to remind yourself that self-examination is not the same as self-punishment.

Because the truth is, many of the expectations I’ve carried were not even mine. They were handed down. From teachers. From strangers. From family. From the label of “clever kid.” And I accepted them as my own.

Now the task is to filter them. To choose which expectations I actually want to live by, and which I can let dissolve.

It is not my fault that I have these expectations but it is my responsibility to manage them.

I can expect myself to show up. I can expect myself to give the best account of who I am today. But I cannot expect myself to live up to someone else’s unfinished dream, or some fantasy written when I was still a child.

If unspoken expectations lead to resentment, then filtering expectations is what leads to peace.

Maybe that’s the real lesson. To be kinder to myself. To make peace with the inner critic and turn them into an inner friend.

Because at the end of the day, it’s me who has to live with me. For every one of the 920 months.

And you have to do the same thing too.

🐥 Haiku’s Haiku 🐥

Haiku loves being a tourist, and this might be his most “touristy” photo yet.

It could also be my favourite shot of him so far.

The big question is… can this ever be topped?

Have we reached the peak of the polaroid?

🌴 Palm Tree Euphoria 🌴

It’s such a strange question. It broke my brain when I tried to work out my own answer.

And I’m still not convinced of my own answer. I want to say it was in Sidmouth rolling down a grass verge with my nan.

See you next week Dashing Ducks! 🐥

P.S. if this trip down memory lane jogged yours, forward it to a fellow duckling and see what their first ever memory might be.

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