From career success to monumental personal achievements, or milestones of marriage, buying a house, or even going on vacation, our ability to imagine how something will make us feel is often vastly inaccurate.

We continually rank future emotions and experiences higher than day-to-day activities.

I’d spent my entire life caught up in the hustle. Feeling compelled to prove my worth, to earn respect, to earn love. Always busy. Always doing.

I’d made a great deal of progress in therapy and recovery rooms. I’d worked my steps and grew self-awareness, self-compassion, and acceptance. In many aspects of my life, I was “better.” I’d learned to surrender.

My opportunity is to have self-awareness when I’ve created an unrealistic expectation or a fantasy story where I’m hyper-focused on the outcome.

Outcomes kill potential and possibility. Outcomes kill desire.

My mind tends to teeter between past regrets and the potential of the future. It’s easy for me to get tangled.

Vivid mental scenes arise out of seemingly nowhere — moments where I question both my actions and choices of inaction. Like somehow, if I think about it a bit more, I can change what occurred.

My compulsion is to control. If it is to be done, I am to do it. I know how, come on everyone, follow along now.

Gold-star seeking is ever-present. It doesn’t matter the topic. My ego yearns to accomplish and win. My tendency is to plan and incessantly do, often, until exhaustion.

The last thing I was looking for while living in cramped corporate housing with rented furniture was another pet. I got home one evening, and my husband said, “I found a cat. I think it’s living in the bushes.”

A few days later, I walked downstairs and spotted a tortoiseshell fur ball sunning on the sidewalk. As soon as the stairwell door closed, it popped up and ran toward me.

In my adolescence, acceptance conjured anxiety and strife. Regardless of my thoughts and feelings, I was told, “Just accept it,” or discouraged from questioning through the silent treatment.

Our house wasn’t an environment of nurturing conversations. Important topics of where I stayed while she worked nights, to what I ate, or who I was friends with were off-limits to negotiate.

What if I were curious today?

What if I laid down my rigid expectations of progress and productivity? What if I chose to enjoy the journey instead of meticulously chasing the so-called goal?

My attitude and my day, my partner, and my body would all be open and uplifted. Curiosity seems to be the portal for joy.

The first time I made macaroni and cheese, I didn’t know to drain the water before adding the orange powdery mix.

I was eight and could read, but was already impatient with written directions.

Growing up, an only child of a single parent didn’t provide opportunities for a full pantry or culinary lessons. I was typically alone, scrounging through the kitchen to stifle my hunger.