Transforming Expectations

My wife, Kathie, and I were in Fuji Kawaguchiko, a lakeside resort town at the foot of Japan’s Mount Fuji. We had come to see, and perhaps climb, Mount Fuji, but we couldn’t see it at all, only roiling silver-gray clouds. We’d expected as much — it was July, and the humid Japanese summers are often cloudy and rainy. Fuji is almost as famous for its absence as for its presence. Besides, I’m used to the idea that the more you count on the arrival of an important experience or accomplishment, the greater the likelihood that it won’t arrive and that instead you will get to enjoy something completely different.

Norman Fischer
from When You Greet Me I Bow