People
always say “no expectations, no disappointments.”
True,
but there’s more to it than that !!!
Expectations
– nasty, slimy, prickly creatures that jump between two people and keep them
from having a relationship with each other. “The relationship is with the expectation”. I’m going to say it in
another way. When you place your expectations upon another person, you have a
relationship with those expectations, rather than with the real, live, amazing,
creative, and potential-full human being. Don’t take me wrongly. Expectations
are a powerful tool when I am setting goals for myself. I visualize and expect
I will achieve them.
However,
anytime I place my expectations on someone else, where I expect someone to
think or speak or act in a way that I've decided the person should. That is, a
self-created expectation of what the other person “should” do.
Also,
Expectations embody all the vitalizing emotions and sentiments – hope, trust,
excitement, anticipation. They also typically entail some acquiescence to vulnerability;
a state of being that can definitely be unnerving and exposing. Being
disappointed by someone we expected more from is a sinking experience,
undoubtedly.
So
expectations have value, and on the other end, disappointment too is important.
Like pain, it serves a purpose – it teaches and trains and exposes our own
patterns of desire and disillusion to ourselves. There is always more to learn
about yourself in order to live more honestly and openly, and disappointment is
just one teacher of many. Shed that light over it; you can always cast things
under your own light, see your trials through the lens of a perspective endowed
with your own personally cultivated positivity.
Ultimately, expectations
are a risk – but so is existence. It can be hollow and detached, or it can be
messy and painful and surprising and enlightening and wonderful. Stumbling
through all that is essential to growth and endows life with all the punch and
poignancy in revelations earned, love lost, and bonds forged.
Anything less would be a disappointment.
Anything less would be a disappointment.
