Field Notes: Expectations and the Art of Digging Outhouses

When I was 17, I really didn't think that a decade later I would find myself cleaning toilets. Instead I pictured myself working in a beautiful office, in a beautiful big city, steadily climbing up the ranks to success.

But I've done that, was miserable, and find myself now, 5 months later, digging outhouses in search of happiness. I recently told this to my brother in law and he smirked knowingly. "Terri," he said "I'm a care aid. I help people with huge barriers - mental and physical disabilities - overcome them and live a fulfilling life. But, to be honest, I spend a lot of time helping people go to the bathroom."

This got me thinking... one of my best friends is also a care aid, working in the hospital. She loves her job, makes fabulous money and is genuinely happy and yet, if you ask her, she'll tell you that she spends most of her days wiping butts and cleaning toilets. On top of this, her mother is a nurse and her husband a plumber, and both are paid very well and deal, almost exclusively, with a lot of human feces.

Yet all are fulfilled with their jobs and love what they do. It seems like for a lot of us life is cleaning toilets and wiping butts with a few amazing moments littered in between. That's the funny thing about expectation: when you're younger, we tie goals to each stage of life, ie: I'm 25 and I will be in my career, moving my way up or, I'm 30 and I will have gotten that promotion and secured tenure etc.

And yet, after all of that none of my own goals involved my own happiness - no "checklist" of maturity ever asked me how this was working out for me? Many checklists involved salary and ownership, but none even touched on my own happiness.

I'm starting to realise that more often than not the expectations that we think we impose on ourselves are actually the expectations of others. Yes, someone may look and think that cleaning a toilet, even if it's cleaning a toilet in a beautiful Provincial Park in a beautiful part of the world, is not the right thing for a career minded 27 year old to be doing - and trust me, I get it. 17 year old me is judging my harshly.

And yet, here I am, diligently cleaning my toilets and trucking along and I am for the first time in years, happy as can be. The funny thing about expectations: sometimes the reality can be just as surprising.