Expectations

In a perfect world, I would like to think that I boarded a plane in San Diego on July 5th at 7:10 in the morning with no expectations.

In both our work with ASILA and the Aspen Institutes’ Stevens Initiative, our four-person team gathers around a large table in the Moroccan Center for Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship every Monday through Friday, just a brief walk from our apartment on the edge of the Medina. On one wall, a large window looks down over the street, opposite an easel full of hurried ideas, plans and notes. Our first workweek in Rabat has seemingly flown by. Just a week after arriving in Rabat-Sale, Shelby and I have already begun to master the art of wandering (safely, of course.) We walk nearly everywhere we go: to the office, to the marina, to the tram, the market, la patisserie, and everything in between. And it could not be more fulfilling, nor could it be farther from what I had ever expected.

Houcine, Manal, Shelby, and I became fast friends. It could have been the craziness of Manal’s three girls climbing across us in the back seat of her beat-up, little car. Or the late night walk through Temara for crepes and jus d’orange, followed by zealous discussions of ambition and intention. Or our first stroll down the extra-wide sidewalks of the Rabat Medina marina district, through children playing street soccer and boiled snail vendors, down to the bustling outdoor souk. And I could not be more grateful, nor could it be farther from what I had ever expected.

So, here’s a random (and otherwise incomplete) list of additional things I did not expect, despite having no expectations:

Olives. Fresh dates and whole walnuts. The most colorful tubs of spices and herbs that you have ever seen. Eating the Moroccan staple bread, khobz, with honey and olive oil. Digging into homemade tagine and couscous with your hands, surrounded my Manal and her most gracious (and absolutely hilarious) family. Developing a new type of sign language, involving extraordinarily broken French, the iTranslate phone app, and Google Images. Fixing the shower head to the wall with medical-grade tape. Souks. Riads. Doors. The way that texting in Arabic uses the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7, and 9 to express letters we don’t use in the English language. Being invited to lunch by people you cannot communicate with in the slightest. Being cat-called, yes. And occasionally being followed by persuasive street vendors. But also the way that Manal turned on Ed Sheeran the first time we squeezed into the back of her car and it felt like being home (see video below if you don’t believe me).

In his 2008 TED Talk, “The transformative power of classical music,” Benjamin Zander stated “… it’s appropriate for us to ask the question, who are we being as we go back out into the world?”

I have thought a lot about this question in the week since our plane landed in Rabat, an exhausting 22 hours after I left home (and especially following our teams shared ability to revel in the glories of the Jonas Brothers and 50 Cent). While I have far from come to any miraculous or extraordinary conclusions, I am beginning to think that maybe it is no longer about age, culture, ethnicity, gender, language, race, religion, or sexual orientation. Maybe it’s about recognizing that we really are all so much more alike than we are different. And while it is these differences that make the world absolutely fascinating, who are we being when we chose to act upon these premonitions rather than see every encounter we have as an opportunity to share our similarities instead?

Zander concluded his Talk by urging us to take a vow: “I will never say anything that couldn’t stand as the last thing I ever say.” He continues, “Now, can we do that? No. And we’ll make ourselves wrong and others wrong. But it is a possibility to live into.”

Everyone has expectations. There is no doing good in striving to expect the unexpected. Rather, I am beginning to strive to lean into the possibility of walking into every conversation I have, every interaction I am awarded, and every situation I fall into with the overarching notion that they will be what I make of them. So why not focus on our similarities rather than our differences?