The Power of Expectations

I learned something yesterday. 

A couple of weeks ago, I had what I've been calling the misfortune of traveling via (that is, by) rail from Vancouver to Saskatoon. I had been excited for this journey home. I knew it would be long. I knew that it was not a reasonable means of travel if one expected to arrive at their destination when the ticket indicated one would. Our train was 20 hours late. To give it some perspective, we were expected to be in on Sunday at 9am but instead arrived what would be Monday at 5am. The trip was marked by periodic and inexplicable stops, a broken freight train that blocked our path that left our train immobile for 12 hours, explanations by staff that various problems would be solved between the ludicrous time span of between 1 and 10 hours, and a final soul destroying and unexplained halt within metres of the Saskatoon train station that lasted two hours. As many know, this trip left me a broken and embittered man. 

Via rail has a callous disregard for it's customers, I said. Customers are clearly their lowest priority, I thought. Someone should privatize this goddamn company, I seethed. Not because things happened on the track that held us up, I felt. These were out of anyone's direct control, I understood. It was the lack of communication, the lack of explanation that was offered, and the lack of any discernible interest by the staff and company to get us where we were going on time, I reasoned. 

There is something romantic and old fashioned about the train. Totally in a good way, mind you. A means of travel that is a little more human, a little more social, and a little bit slower paced. Where the journey is the reward, where a person can relax, take in the sights, and catch up on some reading and some Zs. For these and other reasons (economical, environmental) I was so looking forward to this trip. My return from Vancouver was to be followed by two weeks of holidays and I was looking forward to the slow pace of travel, a categorically different sort of speed than I had been used to in what was a very busy term. 

It only occurred to me yesterday that the delays and lack of information did not impact those aspects that I was so looking forward to, and was so enjoying. In fact, the delays allowed me to read more, meet more travelers, snooze more, and generally relax more. Well, they could have. Instead I was irritated, unhappy, and downright livid at times. I considered murdering a man at one point. But why? I had no where to be. I wasn't missing anything. I was warm and fed and comfortable, and in good company. I was angry and upset because my expectations had been challenged. They were decimated in fact, with no ability to make new ones.  

I was so focused on what should have been and what was supposed to have happened and on getting somewhere and on being angry that I missed what was right in front of me all along - more of what I was looking for. I wish it were that all my expectations could be so thoroughly dismantled. 

We all have somewhere to be. It is exactly where we are in this moment.