The omnipresent companion

Expectations are simply omnipresent. It's what you expect from the people in your personal as well as professional relationships. From your co-worker to your best friend to your spouse, you have expectations of everyone in your life. You expect your boss or your human resources representative to hand you a paycheck on pay day. You expect your parents to remember to call on your birthday. You expect the new person you’re dating to call, or text, within a certain timeframe after a date. If you set your expectations too high however, and the person does not meet your standards, you are the one who winds up feeling sad or angry.

Managing expectations, both our own and those of the people in our life, creates breathing room for our experiences, allowing us to live with more certainty and calm, encouraging less reactivity, avoiding upset. We all have expectations of people, events, our work, the movies we go to, the restaurants we eat at. Most of the time our expectations live below our subconscious mind and we do not know we had the expectation until we are either happily surprised or disappointed. It takes some time to realize it though.

However one question that always lingers in my not so thoughtful mind is why is managing expectations such a big deal? Why is the power of expectation so great? And why do people spend so much of their time these days frustrated, angry, and pissed off ? Are some of these expectations genuine or is it synthetically created. Is it a transition from feeling neutral - to feeling excited - to feeling disappointed. Are we alone responsible for laying down guidelines for what to expect and what not to. Someone also said - "today’s expectations are tomorrow resentments” or “expectations are resentments in training”.

As far as I am concerned I still am looking for answers. But one thing I do realize is that managing expectation is easier said than done and it's definitely an omnipresent companion to one. One may able to tame this animal but may not simply curb it.