The trouble with expectations

Searching for (and with ??) “expectations” on the internet doesn′t bring great results. I liked one explanation though,

Expectations are formed by:

• the  feeling that good things are going to happen in the future
• the feeling of  expecting something to happen
• the feeling against/contrary to all expectations (different from what is expected)

If you think of it, the minute we are born, we are expected to do something or to be a certain way. With xxx age we are expected to have reached the common development standards. The older we get, the more is expected from us, the higher are our expectations towards others and the more we are expecting towards ourselves. Last one is the trickiest one.

We want to be, or we think we must be, the best looking, the smartest, the most successful. Then life happens.

We start in a new job and do expect to be perfect from day one on, we know everything and we, of course, add value to the enterprise and teams. The job will be super interesting, the colleagues awesome and the management innovative and brilliant. We will learn new things and step up the career ladder. Then life happens.

We expect our friends to always accept us as we are, all the time, even embrace our weirdness. Our friendships are not troubled, there will never be any crises and friendships certainly do not end.  Then life happens.

And, finally, in our probably most complex part of our lives, our romantic relationships. We do not only want, we do expect! these relationships to be as close to perfect as possible. To be wonderful human beings ourselves, smart, pretty, fresh, interesting, fit, funny and re-invented repeatedly like Madonna.  Our partner on the other hand should love, admire, adore, prioritize, entertain, miss and challenge us. Then life happens.

We tell our little daughters the prince on the white horse will come to get them. Have you seen him yet? I haven′t, some probably came close, but never with a white horse ??. We make our sons believe they will be super heroes and save the world from the enemy. I saw superman only on TV.

How many times did you want to plan a special dinner with a loved one, a special surprise b-day party, a divine valentine′s celebration? How many times did it turn out to be a disappointment? The waiter was horrible, your partner in a bad mood, the food not good, the party a flop….. On the other hand, did it ever happen to you, not planning anything at all and having had one of the nicest experiences? Most probably because you didn′t expect anything.

Experiencing the impossible to satisfy our own ridiculously high expectations towards ourselves - and that others hardly hold up to them - creates huge frustrations, it can even lead to feel like being a failure or having a depression.

So, would we be safer to not have any expectations at all?

I don′t think that’s the solution, besides the fact that it’s practically very difficult to do. Also, by not having any expectations (towards ourselves or others), we do not only give ourselves no credit but also evaluate people in our (personal and professional) lives with very low criteria.  

But we can try to lower our standards. Definitely its worth to think about a line I read: “There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality or lower your expectations.”