I had been having a Line exchange with Neecha about how I am always trying to avoid ugliness and dirtiness in this world. About how I try to make the ugliness that does exist  ‘over there’, i.e. not in my life. I gave the example of restaurants: I always check health code scores before I eat out and I am unwilling to go someplace ‘dirty’. Even still, I don’t ever want to sit facing the kitchen. I am afraid to get a look inside and find a level of dirtiness I just can’t handle.

Neecha asked me a simple question: “Alana, is your own kitchen always perfectly clean?”

Since it’s obviously not, how exactly can I expect it from a restaurant? I started thinking about if I was getting what I expect out of my life. And, if I am not (since I am not) what it means. My  conclusion: My expectations about this world, about what I will get and what I can avoid, are wrong. Dirtiness is a state that quite simply can’t always be avoided, not in restaurants and not in my home.

As you, Dear Reader, already know, I love to travel. But part of traveling is the reality you never really know what you are going find at your destination.  Since I don’t know what I will get, since my expectations are sometimes wrong, doesn’t it follow that just going through my day-to-day life — even doing what I enjoy — I can’t really escape that ugliness and dirtiness that I keep trying to relegate to a place ‘over there’ behind the fence?

I had been thinking about this a bit  following my Line exchange with Neecha when I saw the most perfect — the most totally captain obvious– commercial ever. I will give the link below and let the commercial, which sums up my contemplations wayyyyyy better than words ever can, speak for itself. To this day, when I consider the topic of my expectations versus my reality, this little clip comes to top of mind.

Because I have totally booked this hotel before…https://www.ispot.tv/ad/7KY6/hotels-com-obvious-lies