My birthday was August 27th, so I got some presents of course. Most notably, I got a $25 Best Buy gift card from my brother and his wife. So, I romped over to Best Buy and started looking at how to spend my money. I looked at games, at music, simple stuff like that. I poked around in the accessories for a while to no avail. I finally decided on A game, Far Cry 2, and some music from DJ Tiesto. I purchased it, and headed out the door.

I got in the car, and quickly realized that the music I'd bought was not, in fact, two CDs as I had thought, but two DVDs. Well, not what I expected, as I couldn't play it in my car, but it's still good music and I could probably rip it when I got home. When I did get home, I popped in Far Cry 2, installed it, and started playing. I found it a bit complex, so I dropped the difficulty to easy in hopes that I would figure it out soon. I didn't. The game is much more confusing than I'd initially thought.

My point is this: things are great, I love things. The problem is that if you rely on them fulfilling your expectations to make you happy, you'll be in trouble soon. Luckily, I don't live that way, so neither of my realizations will really impact me. I'll fight through Far Cry 2 anyway, and I'll find a way to get the music off the Tiesto DVDs. It wasn't what I expected, but it was still good.

That actually is true about many things. Surprises can be good, surprises can be bad, but by themselves, a surprise is little more than something unexpected. Unexpected things are good, they are spicy, they keep things rolling just when your mind starts to settle. So, keep your head on its toes: enjoy the unexpected.