Expectations

Have you ever noticed that people disappoint you a lot? Do you regularly find yourself disapproving of others' conduct? Are you surprised when someone lives up to the standards you set?

You could have expectations.

If this is the case, you’re not alone. Most of us have expectations for other people, and it is not unusual for them to go unmet. In fact, some of us have so many expectations that our relationships are often a source of dissatisfaction, leaving us frustrated and unfulfilled. These expectations are not always easy to explain either. Some of them are the product of our upbringings and the expectations that we were held to as children. Some of them are the side effect of another condition, self centeredness, which gives rise to a type of entitlement-based expectations. And then there are expectations formed around others’ behavior—as in what you’ve come to expect. And to top it off, there are principled expectations, which are abstract in nature and represent how we think people should behave in general. Determining what kind of expectations you have—and where they come from—is an important part of learning more about your condition.

To truly understand your expectations—and to learn to live with them—you have to be honest about the effect they have on you. For instance—is it your husband’s incurable laziness and bad attitude about housework that disappoints you, or is it your unrealistic expectation that one’s spouse should want to help the other spouse equally shoulder the responsibilities of the home? Is the source of your disgust really the blatant superficiality of all your friends and how much they talk about money and new clothes and houses and other people, or is it your naive expectation that people should, on average, be concerned with matters of significance? Are you perturbed because the receptionist at your doctor’s office barely looked you in the eye and acted like you were annoying them the whole time you were there, as if you weren’t the customer and you weren’t paying good money to see your doctor and as if you didn’t make this appointment three months ago—or is it your overly demanding expectation that people should practice simple politeness and make eye contact and stop bringing their crappy attitudes into work with them and show a little professionalism? Are you angry because your nearly-adult kids complain constantly and take their privileged lives for granted and act like spoiled little brats who can’t tear themselves away from a text message for one second to actually communicate with you about their day, or is it because, like an idiot, you expect them to understand the advantages they have in life and show some appreciation and act their age instead of acting like tweens for once? Are you enraged by people in line at Starbucks who throw a hissy-fit when the barista doesn’t have their favorite ingredient, by drivers who honk at you after .005 seconds of sitting at a green light, at parents who smoke in the car with their babies in the backseat, at the nearly 2000 people who stampeded into a Walmart on Black Friday in 2008 killing a seasonal employee by crushing him to death and then complained when they were asked to leave the store, and by John Edwards?

Or are you enraged because, despite thousands of years of history and atrocities and small minds and weak characters and the utter predictability of human behavior, you still expect people to be better than they are?

It’s exactly this kind of introspective exercise that can help you determine the source of any negative feelings you might be experiencing as a result of your relationships and interactions with the world. And when you realize, finally, that it’s your expectations that are at the root of your negative feelings about people, you can take the first step towards recovery:

Abandon them.

“For your health.”

-Dr. Steve Brule

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