Great Expectations
Let’s talk expectations.
The older I get, the more I realise life isn’t the way I was told it would be. Like, not even close.
From birth, we inherit a wide array of narratives of what being a human is all about: ideas about what “normal” is, the milestones we “have to” hit to be “successful”, who we “must” be to please our parents, the heavy “shoulds” we carry into relationships, finances, beauty, sex…
Those stories shape how we see ourselves, others and how we experience life. They give us a reliable script to move through life so, don’t worry, we don’t need to figure it out ourselves.
I’ve come to the conclusion that expectations have a funny way of getting in the way of pretty much all the good stuff.
Cos, lemme tell ya (spoiler alert) expectations guarantee disappointment.
When we come from a place of expectations, we don’t meet reality as it is. Rather, we aggressively try to will reality to our own volition (which usually ends up in tears, ours).
Often we use expectations as a measuring sticks to compare, blame, accuse and asses if we are in the “right” trajectory (leading to multiple existential crisis).
If we expect someone to be a certain way, we are not allowing them to be as they actually are.
If we expect a situation to unfold a certain way, we are not living the reality of what is.
If we allow expectations to run our lives, we’ll spend our lifetimes trying to push, manipulate and control life to be as we *think* it should be.
Expectations keep us separate from life. They hold no spontaneity or curiosity. They are stiff, suffocating boxes we try to squeeze life, others and ourselves into.
We grasp on to expectations as a shield to try to protect ourselves from the unknown. If we *think* we know how life goes, we don’t need to face the reality that we have no clue how life will go.
Truth is, life cannot disappoint us, only *we* can disappoint ourselves. Life never made any promises as to how it was going to unfold.
Life has no script, no set of requests to fulfil so our egos will be happy.
And besides, what makes us believe we know better than life about what should or shouldn’t happen?
We’re so funny sometimes, telling life and others how they should be so WE feel comfortable.
The choice is, as always, ours. We get to be on a life-long battle to try to force what we think life should be, or we can be brave and venture into the mystery of life.