Most people I know here in the U.S. are focused on the coming holidays.  Everywhere you turn the music, the decorations, and the celebrations are overlapping with festivities.  It’s very easy to get swept up in cramming the calendar with every possible event and trying to do it all.  It’s also tempting to compare one’s experience with the past, or the other people we see on Facebook.  Or how about those Christmas movies where every relationship drama is resolved in less than two hours so that everyone is happy and in love by the end of the movie?  That’s why it is SMART to remember that our expectations can either provide us with a wonderful experience—OR—they can make us miserable.  Like so many things, if we stay conscious and aware we can choose to embrace the best and let go of the rest. [Read more…]