great expectations

It is quite flattering to be given praises for a good job you have done. A report people thought you did well. A talk critics think was nice or even satisfying. Or just anything you've written that people appreciated. It's not easy to please anyone, and just to be "liked" for the little somethings you've done good is really something to be happy about. Sometimes it makes you feel proud, secretly, because after all the hardships, failures, and some heartaches...it feels good to feel you have succeeded, somehow. But sometimes you hate it. Sometimes you also think, like Rachel in the Bodyguard asks, "Am I pretty enough? Am I good enough? Have I done enough?" I guess it's hard to be one of these people. You don't really know what people think about you. Do they really like you? Or do they curse you behind your back?

I just wonder what do we truly know about these people we consider "smart," "strong," and "happy."  Do we know that they have moments when they could actually think of nothing? That they also have dumb moments? That they do make wrong decisions? Do we realize that they also have weak moments-- that they cry, that they get scared, that they want to run to somebody greater and stronger. Do we realize that behind their infectious laugh, their jokes, their endless funny antics, is a lonely soul just wanting to be loved--in the truest sense of the word. To be loved and to be appreciated not because they are considered capable of doing many things, things beneficial for most people. What if they lose all of these things? What if they forget everything people believed they're an expert on? Who will stay by their side? And in times of pain...what if everybody expects them to win over everything in their life...like it's just a simple report in class. But what if it is way worse than that? What if it's something that...they do not have faith they could conquer? Who stays with them in these battles?

And have we ever asked them, those people who we think are too great that they do NOT need us, if they need our help? I think it is alright to stay with them. I bet they are as normal as we all are. They're just trying to live life to the fullest in the middle of great expectations. Expectations they would desperately try to meet no matter how hard or how impossible it sometimes gets.  At the end of the day, I believe they just do their best because they love what they do, and they would want to help others. I believe they thank God for all the wisdom, all the blessings, because at the end of the day, it's just God who judges how well we did in this lifetime. And, yes, life is too short. I do feel that.