Expectations
Expectations are a big part of every body's life. It seems to me that expectations are the cause of a lot of unhappiness in this world. Are they a good thing or a bad thing? What are they really based on? Usually I set my expectations for myself and my situations so high that the outcome can only be disappointing.
I seem to have high expectations for the people I know and love as well. They have to go above and beyond my expectations to impress me. Expectations they aren't even aware of sometimes. Strangers, on the other hand, can do the smallest of things and make me happy. Is this fair?
This scenario players out hundreds of times a day with the end result almost always disappointment. Everything from how I expect my wife to treat me down to how my food should taste is all weighed against my expectations. This can lead to hurt feelings when people aren't even aware that they have injured me. In fact, they may be thinking they did me a favor. When I am sick I expect my wife to take care of me but does her definition of care match my expectation. It better or I might just blame her for my unhappiness instead of the illness. Totally unfair on my part but it has happened.
Of course the few times my expectations are met euphoria should ensue but in most cases I just feel relief that I wasn't disappointed. Most of the time I find happiness when my bad expectations turn out to be false. A good day when I expected a bad one. No traffic when I expected rush hour grid lock. No waiting at my favorite restaurant to get a seat.
Why do I feel the right to place my expectations on everything and anyone? How do I keep from having these expectations? Where do they come from and how do I control them? I hope some of the answers I find are the ones I'm expecting to hear.
16 comments:
A pole long enough for me to touch this one with does not exist.
:-)
<3
That bad huh?
To be totally honest I started writing this a week ago. That's why I mentioned it when I saw your comment. Trust me, it has nothing to do with you (as far as I know) :)
I'm sure they make a pole long enough somewhere, don't they? :p
It's human nature to hold expectations. I hold too many! And ALWAYS end up disapointed when they don't happen. So I decided - it's best not to expect anything then nothing can go wrong!!
Good point Lindsay. I've said that to myself too but then I get aggravated when someone I expect nothing from expects something from me. It's like "how dare they!" Of course all this is just a mind game I play in my head and they don't even know the rules.
I am frenetically resisting the urge to make another "pole" comment...
But while I do that, I will say that it's perfectly natural to have expectations; in fact, that's how our little human brains function. Any logician will tell you that inductive reasoning is ALWAYS false... but not one of them will tell you how you're supposed to overcome the fact that we operate, at our basic level of functioning, in knowledge based on induction. In other words, everything we know (pretty much everything, anyway) we know from assumptions made by observing events, for example: I have observed the rising of the sun over a period of several days; therefore, the sun will always rise.
The statement that our knowledge base is procured from induction assumes its own conclusion: we expect certain things to happen because they have happened before and therefore SHOULD happen. This invalid and logically false method of reasoning permeates our thinking on all levels - from the rational to the emotional.
Feel better?? :-)
A
Wow! I can honestly say I wasn't expecting that.
Is it to late to opt for the pole comment instead? :)
I agree with what you're saying but at some point I hope that I will learn to lower my expectations based on past events but it doesn't seem to happen. At least not with the important things.
And I felt fine before, thank you very much :p
Okay then, you asked for it. :-P
Why, pray tell, would you want to "learn" to lower your expectations? Even worse, why would you want to lower your expectations about the important things???
The funny thing about expectations is that they can't really be called expectations unless you've made them public. Expectations are completely different creatures than assumptions. One can assume that someone will take care of them when they are sick, and then be disappointed when it doesn't happen. But one can't expect to be taken care of when one is sick unless others have been advised that this is the way it is supposed to be.
In doing this, one opens oneself to the possibility that those on the outside will accuse one of having "unrealistic expectations." Worse, the discussed expectations may be accepted and then reneged upon at a later date without prior notification to the expectee. This is the inherent danger of expectations, as they are dependent upon a dynamic, one that includes at least two people who often have expectations that are at odds.
Assumptions, on the other hand, are much safer, as one only has oneself to blame when the inevitable disappointment surfaces.
All in my humble opinion, of course.
So, instead of stewing solitary with your assumptions, why not make them known and watch them make the metamorphosis into full-fledged, bona-fide expectations?? If you're already blaming others for your disappointment, why not make it official?
:::::::hug::::::::
Now...
About that pole....
;-)
:)That's all well and good but tell me what you really think!
I'm really slow so I'm going to think on this for a while more but I'm still not there yet. Thanks for trying though. LOL
{{{Daughter}}}
You keep saying it, but I'm never going to buy the "slow" bit. ;-)
wow. You give me food for thought nearly every day.
I know what you're saying about strangers doing the smallest f things, which make you happy. But then someone I care about does something, I'm not as overwhelmed.
I guess it's because you don't have any expectations of strangers when someone that doesn't love you, does something nice, it makes you happy because they had no reason to do something nice and it restores your fatith in humanity - if its needs restoring.
But when someone who is supposed to love you doesn't 'look after' you when you're ill you feel hurt, because you eepect them to show as much love as you would have done if the shoe was on the other foot.
I guess you could change a little - because being disappointed over high expectations of loved ones will only make you and them unhappy - is to look for the positives. if they make you soup when your ill, but it's not the flavour you like, take note of the fact that it was a ncie thing to do, rather than focussing on the fact that it was the wrong flavour.
20 Something: I agree with what your saying, if we could just remind ourselves that it's the thought that counts maybe we could be more appreciative than disappointed.
Daughter: I thought about it some more and your right that I am mixing assumptions and expectations but I don't see where it really matters for this thought I'm trying to ponder. Again your right about observations leading to assumptions but shouldn't experience and education help us get past these assumptions? I will not assume the sun will rise because I've been taught that the sun is not moving, in fact the earth is. In this situation my education has moved me past my observation and assumption about the sun.. Yes that is splitting hairs, I know, but shouldn't I learn after many times that my wife will not take care of me the way I expect when I'm ill? Even when I've expressed my feelings that a glass of water and two motrin seem to be the bare minimum of care. Still the next time I'm sick I will expect it to be different. of course it won't be and I'll still be just as upset if not more because in my twisted little mind I have forgotten (maybe on purpose) that she will never meet my expectation about this. And this is the part I am trying to work out, why? Why won't I learn to expect less so that I won't get upset? If I could somehow lower my expectations more happiness and gratitude would surely follow but it seems to be impossible. It's a real pickle this one. IMHO of course.
And before you say it I know I "beat a lot of dead horses" but that's how my brain works. Just keep flipping it around until it feels right. :)
I think that if you don't expect a lot from people, you won't be dissapointed often.
I love doing things for other people, even people I don't know.
With my addictive personality, I can get off on others happiness.
I feel like I'm OK, what else could I need.
So when you said you get aggravated when someone you expect nothing from expects something from you, well that sounds a tad bit selfish to me.
Like you I set my expectations of myself very very high, I crave perfection in the things I do.
I think the higher the bar, the better you get, over time.
I used to expect this from others too, but realistically if you do, you will be dissapointed often.
I think your high expectations of others may even out a little, as more time goes by.
Geeeez, you sure do ponder, don't you!
A pickle, indeed. I just don't agree that you should "lower" your expectations. It's absolutely okay to have the expectations that you have!! And your feelings are your feelings and they can never be "right" OR "wrong." They just ARE. So that's okay too.
I guess I just want you (and others besides you, I guess you can probably tell this is a sore subject with me) to OWN those expectations and those feelings. They are, after all, YOURS and no one else's. You are entitled to them, in all their glory and festering resentment. Hold onto them if you must.
An example, much like your own: When I am sick, I just want to be left alone. I don't want anyone fussing over me or bringing me things. I just want to be left alone. My MSU just can't understand this and on the rare occasions that I'm not feeling well, we have to have the discussion all over again - "Yes, I'm sure I want you to leave me alone. Yes, I'm SURE that I don't need anything." He has expressed his disappointment that I don't seem to need or want his care (though there have been a few scary exceptions and he definitely came through on those). I understand his disappointment, but don't feel that I have to change my mind about how I deal with MY PERSONAL ILLNESS just because he feels bad that he can't "care" for me. In other words, he's entitled to feel his disappointment because his expectations have not been met, but he is not entitled to further expect that I CHANGE to meet that expectation. His disappointment is about HIM, not about ME. He is disappointed because HIS expectations have not been met, and it's not right or fair of him to try to project that onto me.
It would, of course, be different if I had agreed to allow him to care for me the way he wants to and then, at a later date, reneged. If I had entered into the dynamic of expectation, then I would be culpable for any failure to meet that contract. I didn't, so his disappointment is HIS to feel and own and deal with - not mine to react to and fix.
Anyway, I'm really starting to feel like a mutant regarding this subject, because it is apparent that I stand alone regarding the nature of expectation, so I don't think I'm really even qualified to comment as much as I already have.
:-)
I will admit, though, that I am still subject to the immediate feeling of guilty horror when I realize that I haven't met someone's expectations, even if I know intellectually that it wasn't my place or obligation to do so. So I DO empathize on a very real and manifest level!!!
{{{{{RT}}}}}
DOTN- yes you are who you are, and I agree you shouldn't lower your expectations of people, but like with me they have lowered themselves some way.
Maybe 'beating the dead horse' too many times has mellowed it all.
Harbinger: I understand what you're saying about being selfish but what I was trying to say was in a different context. I'll use the feeling ill example again. I guess because my wife takes such good care of the kids when they're sick she doesn't feel the need or want to bother with me when I'm sick. So by now not only do I not expect much when I'm sick I rarely bother even mentioning it to her. So when she gets sick and ask me to wait on her hand and foot, which I do and don't mind doing, I can't help but feel a little resentfully. Is that selfish? Maybe.
Daughter: I see your point and I'm not even sure we are disagreeing on all that much but wouldn't your MSU have to lower his expectations of the care he's allowed to give if he doesn't want to be disappointed every time? That's not asking anything of you it's just him lowering his expectations on something important to him. Which is what I was saying I wish I could do, lower my expectations, but can't seem to do.
And don't feel like a "mutant" regarding this subject, I wouldn't have started it if I was sure about it. Everyone gave me a lot to think about which was more than I expected, so I'm happy :)
Now...
Back to that pole...
Okay, I think I get it now...
You're saying that you're willing and able to own the disappointment, you just wish you coudl find a way to ameliorate it.
Ahhhhhh.
Have you heard of the Go Gratitude project? It's a weird, kind of New Age-y thing, but it really helped me through a tough time and I would recommend the process (maybe not the subsequent commercialism) to anyone.
And...
I thought we replaced the pole with the pickle?????
:-P
A
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