What are you expecting to receive
this holiday season? Did you create a
wish list, hint throughout the year or leave it up in the air? The element of surprise is delightful for
some, but for others there’s both the fear of disappointment and fear of not
being able to handle that disappointment well.
I’ve been thinking about expectations.
WHAT ARE EXPECTATIONS?
In life many things happen where
we don’t react with anger or disappointment because we think of them as a
natural part of what’s occurring – people crying at a funeral, birds chirping
in the morning, people laughing in a comedy show. But what if people were laughing at a funeral
and crying at the comedy show? Our expectations are tied to an idea of what we
think should be happening, which if thwarted leads to our being upset or
disappointed.
It seems then that expectations
are tightly bound up with ourselves.
They manifest as “I wish, I want, I like, my dream, my idea”, so our
feelings and emotions are closely tied up in the situation or with the person. Such
assumptions are controlling, and have an element of ‘should’ to them: I should get a Christmas gift from my husband,
my friend should invite me to her party, my son should clean up his room, and everyone
should follow the rules. These are all everyday
life occurrences with the added layer of our desire of how they ought to be.
Our expectations are the desires
we hold for something or someone to be a certain way – for lovers to say and do
romantic things, for bosses to praise and acknowledge effort and sacrifice, for
children to be polite and obedient, for parents to be open and
accommodating. The difficulty with them
is that they are projections of hope or imagination onto an essential
experience that effectively blind us to what’s actually there. Or we see what’s there and we reject it in
the hopes of changing it to what we’d like the situation or person to be. For example – your spouse plans a weekend
getaway. You have an idea of where and
what you think is the ideal getaway spot, but he takes you duck hunting. When you learn what it is, your mind rebels
and rails against it because your idea of the getaway is superimposed on the
reality of the situation. So it distorts
your ability to see and enjoy what’s actually occurring because you are
comparing it to what it could have been like.
Essentially then expectations cause us to think that what’s happening
should be different from what’s happening!
These imaginings and presumptions
take our awareness away from the present moment and put it into the future or
past. When
we think that it will or used to be better, we fail to see and appreciate what
is. At the heart of this thinking is the
belief - what’s happening in the moment is wrong in some way. Our
disappointment or suffering is born right then.
MANAGING OUR EXPECTATIONS:
The good news is expectations
like all thoughts also change. As do our
disappointments and feelings. Just as we
and our attitudes, ideas, and beliefs change over time, our expectations will
too. We usually react when we are
disappointed, but it is from the ‘ugliness’ of our reactions that we can gain
wisdom. So we can manage our expectations by:
1.
noticing and thinking about our reactions from past
experience when our expectations ran too high or low,
2.
paying attention to the thoughts we had about the
situation for e.g. how we insulted the other person mentally or verbally, or
how we planned a whole list of complaints against the person, or even how we
beat ourselves up for not being more open or tolerant when our expectations
went unmet,
3.
understanding even in the depths of our disappointment
that these feelings will pass. Our
suffering increases when we believe that pain or joy for that matter, is solid
and unchanging,
4.
changing our perspective and by developing interest
and curiosity about the person or situation.
This helps detach the emotion from the experience, helps us be less
fixated on having things turn out how we want, and aids in how we approach
future experiences,
5.
recognizing what’s within our control and what’s
not. Clearly for our own sanity we give up what’s out of our control – other
peoples’ attitudes, beliefs and reactions – and concentrate on what’s within our
control,
6.
remaining present in the moment as the experience is
unfolding. This grounds us and keeps us from
projecting out in the future or past,
7.
reflecting on what we’d like to gain from our
interactions and experiences starting from the present moment.
None of this is easy. But if we’d like to relieve our suffering and
be less distressed then it certainly requires such a worthy effort. We’ll discover that every moment holds within
it the conditions for happiness and gratitude.
May you have a joyful holiday
season and a happy, healthy New Year.
