Expectations

I don't have any expectations for my life!

Well, that's not entirely true of course. There's the obvious basic needs: warmth, food and internet. And in a fairly vague, fairly long-term sense, I do know where I am going to and what I am aiming for. But immediate concrete goals, I have none. I'm a very passive person, so I tend to get swept up in the excitement of other people. The same friend that made me jump off a cliff in Africa is now convincing me to go to South America next summer. I have no particular goal or wish to go there, yet I know that if I go, good things will happen. It's great to be able to travel with friends in that way, but sometimes I just really wish that I had a goal of my own that I could work towards. (And no, cycling Japan was not a life-long wish or something I really really wanted to do, it was just a matter of being at the right place in the right situation).

Relating more to my passivity, people apparently think that I'm a nice guy. I'm really not! But because I am passive, I tend to think of ways to fulfill people's expectations as quickly as possible so I can get rid of them. And usually the best way to shut people up is to agree with them. Just the other day, a random Polish manservant and his customer walked into my apartment unannounced. I was rather surprised but decided that a reaction of anger would only make things worse, so I let them in and take a look at the apartment. (Since I am moving out next month the Polish guy who works for my landlord was showing a potential tenant the room). Another annoying thing that happened to me was a phone call from my bank. They wanted me to answer a whole bunch of questions about customer satisfaction over the phone, and I really did not care. It didn't help that the poor woman's accent was terrible and very hard to understand. I could have hung up early but instead I just finished answering her questions as quickly as I could, while eating dinner.

I'm going to get sidetracked now, but it's my own blog, so I'm allowed to. I'm fairly happy about my bank, but have been very pissed off at how hard it is to order anything online here in the UK. I tried to order a smartphone and got rejected. Probably because my bank account was created only this month. Then I tried ordering a PC and my order was canceled because I tried to deliver to an address other than the address on my bank card. I do beg your pardon, but that's just fucking retarded. I can order my hardware from Hong Kong on a credit card, but I can't order from inside the same country on a debit card? Something's wrong here, Britain. Fix It.

Right, back to expectations. I don't usually enjoy active things as much as I enjoy passive things. Rather than skydiving or bungee jumping I prefer to observe and photograph instead. Traveling to many different places is something I enjoy a lot. When other people are sleeping in the train I am looking outside to see the world go by. Then we get off the train to do some activity and I really can't be bothered any more. Different people like different things I guess. That's not to say that I don't like active things, because I do. They just give me less mental fulfillment.

I am genuinely annoyed that people think that I am a nice person. I used to be a very different person, way back in high school. Since then I've changed a lot, and tried to be a nicer person in general. Personally I think I haven't quite achieved the level of niceness that I was aiming for in the past. On the other hand, people in Britain are a lot less nice than anywhere else ( ;) ). I need to tone down my niceness a little to fit in better in this country. Therefore, I declare my goal for 2011: be less nice!

Well, that was random. Brain dump complete.

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