"Nearly all the best things that came to me in life have been unexpected, unplanned by me." - Carl Sandburg
I have a lot of questions today.
I've heard before (and believed) that having high expectations sets you up for failure. I understand the sentiment, but recently I've been working on a perspective shift…could expectations essentially be limitations? If we have expectations of any degree, will we miss outcomes that could be even greater than the ones we experience due to setting our sights specifically on what we believe (or want) to be true?
If I expect to go to the grocery store to simply buy the items on my list, will I miss the fact that Peanut m&ms are on sale? (Such a shame!) More seriously…if I set an expectation for the qualities I want in a partner…will I shut myself off to someone who is even greater than that prescribed expectation? That list of qualities that I decided were important (so important that I wrote them down…) 5 years ago could end up being a limitation if I've conditioned myself to search for them and only them. What if those expectations really are setting us up for disappointment? If our expectation is that it will not snow until December, and it ends up snowing in October, will we miss the beauty because we've covered it up with disbelief?
What if we didn't have an expectation? What if we lived truly moment by moment and everything that came to us was a surprise..one for which we were always grateful? Will that practice limit disappointment? Does it limit inconvenience? Could having an expectation possibly limit…joy?
I'm starting to wonder if expectations make our worlds less colorful, if they shut us off from all things possible, and if we are selling ourselves short by being rigid in our desires.
This view is not to discount standing firm on your values and being sure of your worth. You deserve that job you've worked hard for. You deserve to be treated fairly and you deserve a partner who far exceeds your non-negotiable standards. I'm only suggesting that, when there's room, we loosen our expectations to leave room for surprises that we didn't even know to want.
