I became aware I had an expectation “problem” while standing opposite a large wall of mirrors in my bathing suit and when my ten-day run of antibiotic was failing for my strep throat. Also when my four-year-old would rather be belligerent to his Mommy than take care of nature’s call. The difference between being happy and being aggravated is in the raising or lowering of life’s expectations accordingly. If I smash the square peg of reality into the round hole of expectation, I can expect a bad day to follow. I have had a former lifetime of those and called it self-sabotage. Such a nineties dysfunction.
I could define expectation as a desired outcome from a specific event, myself, my life, or the people in it. I am completely unaware of my expectations until I suddenly feel a strong feeling such as disappointment or anger. This was probably due to improper usage. How have I applied my expectations? An example of a good expectation could be to set a smaller goal to achieve an ultimate outcome. If I expect my son to make his bed and set the dinner table, hopefully, over time, he’ll develop his own goals with the ultimate outcome of his higher self-esteem.
I had no goals, boundaries, and no one held regular expectations of me growing up. I headed in quite the wrong direction. I expected the world to crap on me and it did. I expected men to be mean and self-serving, and they were. I let myself be used more times than I would care to now count. Does self-fulfilling prophecy sound familiar? Expectation creates outcome. I earned my college degree but hadn’t expected to hate the field I’d chosen. So I went ahead and got married and expected this to be my new self-definition. I did not expect the debilitating misery of working two waitressing jobs to support the ex’s “habits.”
But in an unprecedented maneuver, I bucked my expected crappy ending. I perceived of a possibility I’d never imagined. A destination I hadn’t expected to be entitled to. Happiness. Without a destination possibility, there’ll be no expectations to guide you there. Expectations can serve as a bridge from here to the future. That’s a good application too. My ex-husband didn’t expect me to leave him and the credit counseling service guy said my credit was so bad, I should seek legal counsel. Not.
