It is natural for us as human beings to have expectations. Right? As kids, we expect things from our parents, teachers and friends. When we grow up we start expecting from our managers, our company, our employees, our neighbours, partner, people on the road, and even our dog!. This is normal you would think. But we all know what happens when our expectations are not met. We experience what we call disappointments, unhappiness, sadness, feelings of being let down and sometimes with a feeling of being a failure if the expectations were from ourselves. At different points in our life, each one of us has made a statement like this: “It’s best not to expect anything from anyone to avoid disappointment”. But, have we really believed that we can stop expecting things from ourselves or others? Even if we don’t express our expectations with words, we all know that within us we give home to different kinds of expectations from people around us. When these expectations are not met, we sulk, feel sad or angry. We may not express this to the other person, but we ourselves go into hurt and pain, resolving once again to stop expecting from the other person. And the cycle continues.
What does Expectations Mean?
Expectations means we have already decided the outcome of a situation or a person’s behavior and according to us that is the RIGHT way. We want the outcome to be only OUR WAY for us to remain stable. If it happens any other way we will get disturbed, even if it is a better way. When we get disturbed, we hold them responsible for our reaction and we even feel that they have let us down by not meeting our expectations.
Before we can understand the solution to this , we need to understand the root cause of the problem. The issue here is not in the fact that we have expectations. It lies in the fact on how we have let the results of the expectations influence our lives. We expect things to happen in a certain way and when these expectations are not met we CREATE feelings of anger, unhappiness and disappointment . Notice that I use the word CREATE here an not “Feel”. The fact is that we rarely feel something unless we have created it and that includes feelings of hurt, pain and disappointment. Now this may sound a bit weird to you but stay with me for a while.
Let’s take the example of a husband-wife relationship. All of us who are married today will agree that we have expectations from our partners. This expectation may not be something big and more often than not they are very small and minor. For example a husband expects that his wife cooks for him, manages his house, looks after his kids and so on. Similarly the wife expects that her husband take notice of her, appreciate her, spend time with her and meet her day to day needs. During the early years of marriage, both the husband and wife are looking for opportunities to appreciate each other. As the years go by the frequency and intensity of this appreciation for many couples starts going down. This is when a lot of relationship experts will ask couples to take time off and go out on holiday so that they can start appreciating each other again. You may be wondering where I am going with this.
The point I’m trying to make is that we get so conditioned to receiving something in return for what we have done, that it soons becomes an expectation where you are wishing for an outcome to happen the way you want it to. Don’t get me wrong here. I’m not against people appreciating each other. However, underlying the need for being appreciated is the need to feel ACCEPTED. This is where the root of this problem sits. We are looking for acceptance in every relationship and interaction with people. If we don’t feel that we have got the acceptance, we feel disappointed and unhappy. So when someone does not meet our expectations, deep down we start telling ourselves that the other person does not respect you or does not accept or approve of you. In other words, we have made ourselves dependent on the what the other person will DO or the OUTCOME of the situation to make us feel good or happy about something. The key here is to understand that it is not the outcome or the other person who i creating the emotions of unhappiness or disappointment but it is we who do it through our thoughts.
For a very long time, I held the belief that our thoughts are not in our control and what is in our control is how we respond to those thoughts . Only recently did I realise this that this was only partially true. Thoughts always precede feelings. You may think that when something goes wrong, you instantly have the feeling, however if you really slowed down and analysed, you will see that there is always a thought first, then a feeling or an emotion. Very often the process is so fast that it leads us to believe its the other way round. You could have different thoughts after the feeling has come but there is always a thought BEFORE the feeling arose. This is why I said it is we who CREATE the feelings and emotions.
Our greatest expectation in Life is to feel Accepted
Expect but Accept
Put yourself in the other persons shoes. Another statement which all of us have heard time and again from our parents, teachers, friends and everyone around us. Lets use this to understand what we are discussing here. How many people do you think would like to live their life trying to meet every other person’s expectations? Would you? If you wont like to live your life that way, why do you think anyone else should? Many times we start harnessing expectations from people around us and then get disappointed when the expectation is not met. This is especially true in close relationships like Parent-Child, Husband-Wife, Siblings and close friends. Think of yourself in this situation where you were not aware of what was expected of you and later on you get reprimanded for not meeting the expectation and what’s worse is that the other person also goes into pain. You now also start creating feelings of guilt and hurt when you see your near and dear ones in pain.
Not having expectations does not mean that we will not give instructions or corrections. It means whatever may be the outcome we will be open to being in the present moment and respond proactively. Give instructions and opinions, but do not expect that they have to be followed the way and at the time which we think is right. If we have expectations we react negatively. If we do not have expectations, we will accept the outcome and respond positively. If we get hurt and react often, very soon we label them saying — they NEVER listen to us, they ALWAYS let us down. To avoid creating negative feelings, we need to ACCEPT the outcome and understand that our happiness is not dependent on the other person meeting your expectations.
The concept of expect but accept applies very well to Positive Thinking. Positive thinking is a very heard and read but not practiced enough. Most people believe that positive thinking is to EXPECT the best to happen for you and looking at the “brighter” side of things. This is true but only partially. The second and more important part as per me is to be able to ACCEPT that whatever is happening is the best for the moment. Its about accepting that the situation is best in this very moment rather than expecting the best in every moment. Most of us find it easy to think positive and have the expectation of a positive outcome. However we immediately create pain when the outcome is not met.
Pain is the difference between what you Expect and Accept
Expectation can be Empowering
Expectations can be empowering many times if set correctly. Sometimes the other person may not be able to see things which they are capable of doing or achieving, due to various reasons. During such times, it can be useful to set expectations with the person to show them something to look up to. This is seen a lot in the case of children or a friend who is feeling low. In these situations, expectations can be used to create an empowering vision to help people achieve their goals or bring about a change in their lives. However the important thing is to make sure that we do not create any kind of pressure on the other person to meet those expectations. This is very important in a parent child relationship to convey a message to the child that even though there is an expectation from him, the parent is not going to be affected by the outcome. This helps the kid focus on his goal without feeling stressed. More importantly we need to make sure that we separate ourselves from the outcome of the and not make our happiness dependent on the other person or the outcome. We need to have a detached approach to this where we are detached from the influence of the situation but not detached from the situation itself.
Must Read: Can Detachment and Love Exist Together?
In conclusion, while it is ok to have expectations, what is more important is how you respond when the expectations are not met. Disappointment is a feeling you choose to create within you. You can choose to create a proactive response instead of a negative reaction. The key here is not to go into a feeling of being a victim but to be in the PRESENT MOMENT and decide your response. A response which works towards achieving your desired outcomes but without any attachment to the outcome.
Do you think you can have a life without expectations? Share your thoughts below.
Here is a great video by one of my favourite motivational speakers
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