Less Than They Should Be

I am grappling with things being less than they should be.

This seems to be a common thread running throughout large portions of my life: things seem less than they should be.  By "should be" do I mean "as promised (by something I do not know or cannot recall)" or "as expected (mostly by myself)"? The two are quite different, of course.

"As promised" indicates that some guarantee was given to me by something or someone - even if I cannot seem to recall who gave it.  "Work hard and reap the benefits" for example, or "Endure and reap success".  They sound really good and even to some extent may try to be true, but too often I find myself on the other end of what these seem to imply:  the job that never moves forward no matter how much effort is invested, the relationship that continues to slide regardless of what is supposed to be.

"As expected" indicates that this something that I set up by myself.  I chose to believe that something would result in something else, perhaps without any guarantee or facts supporting the item:  the relationship that would never work no matter what I believed, the job (The Firm) that would have succeeded as presented even though I wanted it to.  Call them perhaps dreams or fantasies rather than expectations, perhaps.

So how does one grapple with these?  This is the problem I find myself facing.  For many of these things that are less than we expect, merely getting up and leaving is not an option - it is just not something that is possible or even desirable. At the same time, living at a level of less than one expects drains one of the zest of living - day after day living at a lower level of achievement or energy eventually enervates one to the point of even wanting to try.

I wish I understood how to change this - since, after all, the only power to change things ultimately derives from myself.