"Expectations are pre-meditated resentments"
At the age of 39 you would think after so many disappointments I would stop having expectations of people or events or whatever. But I continue. And I am continually let down. I refuse to live my life expecting nothing so that I won't be disappointed. It seems so pointless. Yet right now I envy the people who do this. For them everything is a bonus.
Are my standards or expectations too high? Or just the very fact that I have them in this day and age is setting myself up for being let down? When do we stop expecting things from people?
This then begs the question - who have I let down? Who is this life has expected things from me and not received them? I ponder on friendships that have come and gone through my life and wonder if the reason those friendships did not survive was because expectations were not met on either side. Are the friendships I have now that have endured through high school, child rearing, marriage failures, money worries - are those friendships solid because in fact we expecting nothing in return? Just a phone call now and then - an occasional visit - but all the while knowing those people are there for us if we need them. Is that what makes them work? Is a relationship that is conducted on a daily basis more likely to be effected by expectations? Or is it more that a romantic relationship gets to the point where we indeed expect a lot of the other person? More than we have a right to? When those expectations cannot be understood by one person it sets up a domino effect that may very well result in a complete crashing of the very fibres which create the relationship. Yet is it acceptable to verbalise our expectations? Isn't that then just asking for things?
This seems to be the issue I am wrestling with as I begin my journey to rediscover who I really am. I just wonder whether I will like the answers I find?
2 comments:
Good morning Kath-down-under! Perhaps if you expressed your expectations as desires, it might remove the weightiness of the matter. And then it would be called communication.
Okay, I'm going back to bed now...one of the little "woks" called me at 5:30AM to wish me happy father's day...the smartass.
I must ponder this... yes ponder indeed. Damn it, I hate when people make me think. I too am a closet expectationist (Becky word) but I claim not to be however, I can't help it!
There are some things that I have chosen to accept. Maybe I shouldn't have?
Pondering.... will come up with something more solid later.
Excellent post.
♥'s
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