Thursday, February 14, 2013


Expectations…is it better to have them…or not? Human nature is such that we tend to hold silent expectations of others. That they’ll do, say or acknowledge something. Then, when that poor unsuspecting soul fails to deliver upon our secretly kept expectation of them, we have the audacity to get upset. Or feel hurt. Or worse, we don’t react at all other than to hold a grudge.

Not sure about others, but I’ve been guilty of this irrational behavior a time or two. And each time I find myself ensnared in this web, I scramble to extricate myself, vowing that I’ll not hold others to standards of behavior or actions—my expectations of them—in the future…unless…I’ve made clear those expectations ahead of time and they’ve been agreed upon.

So this brings me to wonder. Is it better to float our way through life, expecting little and being pleasantly surprised when things happen our way? This isn’t to say that we shouldn’t strive for the things we want or need. Or that we shouldn’t set goals to live by. Just that perhaps, life might be easier, certainly a lot less stressful, if we don’t harbor ill will towards those poor unsuspecting souls who don’t manage to deliver upon our silently kept expectations of them. And the best way I know of to avoid falling into this pitfall is to not hold expectations in the first place.    

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