Great Expectations

My neighbor has told me that the building that we live in, is built on the land that was owned by a wealthy lady who was jilted at the altar by her fiancée, and she never recovered.  Her mansion was set for the wedding feast, and she never let the servants clear the food or the setting and she never ever got out of her wedding dress, wearing it for the rest of her life.  Charles Dickens based his character of Miss Havisham on this Lady.  Charles Dickens had traveled to Australia under a false name to prevent people knowing he was in the country, and apparently had a lover who lived on Alice St Newtown.

 Great Expectations is something that I have always had.  I didn’t think that my expectations or dreams were over the top, I just thought I was brave enough to actually go after what I really wanted and everybody else was too scared to chase what they wanted and played safe.  Trying to get my expectations back in the box has been hard for me, as I find it near impossible to down size my dreams.  At my neighbors law firm they hire people with real talent, none of this old boy, if you’re from money or know someone you can get a good job, Sydney really is becoming more and more of a meritocracy, where people from bad schools and families as long as they are smart and work hard, end up with the big jobs and careers because they are the best at it, and most productive to a company.  We are at least 10 years ahead of London in this regards as the old remnants of the class system still filter through their corporate system.  Some Kids from rich families and good schools have a thing called “a screaming sense of entitlement” where they have been lead to believe that the world owes them a good life, because they deserve it.  I suffer from this a little.  It’s not that I think I deserve something for nothing, its just that I do think I am smart and wonderful, and why shouldn’t the world reward me for those gifts?  The world rewards the strangest of candidates, and I haven’t been one of them yet.  Will I ever be?  Has my time not arrived yet? Or will I be like that loser single mum in “Mystery Skins” where she is into her 40’s and a single mum with a taste for loser boyfriends, saying to her son “When will my boat come in?” and yet not changing any behavior to change her circumstances.