Meeting expectations

It’s review time at work again!
We get graded somewhat on the basis of exceeding/meeting/falling short of expectations.
I would argue that really…meeting expectations is pretty much missing them.

It’s been a sad habit of mine to set artificially low bars for myself, that I could either hop, leap, or skip over with ease.
Take this morning, for instance. After waking up ridiculously early due to jet lag (I mean ridiculously,) I decided to go for a 6am swim with the local master’s swim group. Master’s swimming means that there’s a coach at the pool, giving you a workout, and different lanes with different speeds of swimmers. Now, it’s been a while since I’ve been swimming, so I decided to be conservative and jump into the 3rd fastest lane (of 7). Which turned out to be perfect, actually. Except that I eventually realized that I was really in the 3rd slowest lane. A small distinction, but it still made me sad, and feeling very very slow and out of shape.

Alas. Sad that I met the bar I set myself