The Importance of Expectations

December 30, 2011

 The Descendants

This is not a happy movie.

This is not a funny movie.

I don't think it's supposed to be happy or funny.

Don't go into this expecting "heart-warming".

People who thought this would be any of the above hated this experience 
Please be realistic when you watch this movie.

Clooney mentions how everyone thinks Hawaii is some kind of paradise, but he hasn't been on a surfboard in 15 years.

I've always wanted to learn how to surf.

We don't have surf here, but we have mountains.

This board should get me going just fast enough to seriously injure myself.

I just picked the board that was the right size at the lowest price.  
Seriously, what is this design supposed to be?
Is it a bumblebee?
Or a face?
I can also see some kind of stylized DJ?


Linkage:

How Doctors Die

It’s not a frequent topic of discussion, but doctors die, too. And they don’t die like the rest of us. What’s unusual about them is not how much treatment they get compared to most Americans, but how little. For all the time they spend fending off the deaths of others, they tend to be fairly serene when faced with death themselves. They know exactly what is going to happen, they know the choices, and they generally have access to any sort of medical care they could want. But they go gently.

Top 5 Regrets of the Dying

People grow a lot when they are faced with their own mortality. I learnt never to underestimate someone’s capacity for growth. Some changes were phenomenal. Each experienced a variety of emotions, as expected, denial, fear, anger, remorse, more denial and eventually acceptance. Every single patient found their peace before they departed though, every one of them.

When questioned about any regrets they had or anything they would do differently, common themes surfaced again and again.