Expectations

What do you expect when you read that word?

What do you feel?

Are you thinking about Charles Dickens’ novel “Great Expectations” or are you thinking about what you expect to be (doing) in a couple of years?

Are you thinking about what you’re expected to do? Socially, by your parents, by your family, by your employer or customers? How do you feel about that? Do you feel pressure or is it easy for you to accept?

Or maybe are you thinking about expectations on a wider scale? Are we expecting a war? Are we expecting the end of the pandemic? What do expectations do to us? They create in us emotional and possibly physical responses to something that has yet to happen. These responses create then other responses that create more expectations and responses and so on. So most of our reactions and emotions are based on things that have not happened and maybe will not happen and maybe were not intended to happen and were wrongly expected!

What about that? Isn’t that mind blowing?

What if we were to single out our emotional and physical reactions based on expectations and divide them from responses to actual events? What do expectations do for us from an evolutionary point of view?

For me, expectations occasionally create great stress and pressure. My own expectations and other people’s expectations. That is why I try to disarm my own expectations by facing things with an open mind and try to put aside high expectations. Generally, high expectations lead to disappointment and I do not cope well with that. If you do not expect a lot, disappointment doesn’t come into play and that’s a win for me. Moreover, it is a double win when expectations are exceeded.

What are your thoughts about expectations? How do they serve us and what is your experience? I’d love to hear your opinion!