Expectations :(

Expectations, what can I say. We all have them but we might want to learn to live without them.

As little kids, we are told that we are going to the store or to visit a new neighbor with Mom or Dad. We get excited. We think about what it will be like. We think about what we will ask Mom or Dad to get for us at the store. We think about how we would really love a nice little kid just like ourselves to live next door. What fun!!


As older kids, we enter Middle School with friends whom we have known for 2-5 years. We are happy and confident that they will always be our friends. Nothing ever cross our mind, that they would leave us high and dry in Middle School but some do. Did we do something that made them not like us now? Will they tell their new friends about what we said or did when we were little even though we did a pinky swear? Can I still trust them? Will the new friends that we make be as "good" as our old friends?

High School continues our expectations of our friends and family. When we are invited with the cool kids to go to a party, we have expectations about that party from what we have heard. We
think we are going to be completely accepted now, we too will now be cool. The party is just a gathering. Some people are cool others just try too hard to fit in. We figure out while there by just watching and listening that everyone else is just as scared, lonely, trying too hard, lacking confidence which shows up as boastful and over confident....as we are. On Monday, we are all back school and just being kids trying too hard to prove ourselves. Any why? What should we even care if the cool kids like us? We like ourselves.
Find another group. There are plenty of groups of kids doing different activities that we might like better than what we saw at the party.

College, yep, same thing but we know a little better and are more confident. Still make errors in judgment. Still having expectations. Didn't our parents warn us about this more than once?
"Birds of a feather stick together" If we have expectations for someone and he/she lets us down, shame on us. We can't change them we can only change our self. Stop with the expectations we tell ourselves. Just wait and see what happens. Then we won't be disappointed.

Marriage can be the same. Although we have talked for hours at a time, asked lots of questions and watched this mate of ours in different public surroundings we don't know them as well as we might. We don't even know how we will act in all circumstances so how can we expect to know how someone that we have know for a year or 5, will act in all circumstances. We might be surprised by how our mate acts when he/she sees an old boss, old teacher, old friend, old lover... We might have even played scenarios about this. How we will handle it if he/she runs into someone we don't know. We have expectations. If we are creative, we might run through the scene like a play or if we are overly dramatic, we might become the hero, villain or the marter. Will our mate be respectful of us?
Will our mate introduce us? Will we feel alone and left out?
Now, I ask you. Is this their fault? Isn't it ours? We had the expectations. We played the scene and fed into our own fears.
Now that is not good. If we are secure with who we are, confident that we are good, nice people, friendly, honest, loyal, hard working, adventurous or whatever...then we have no fear of the past or others.

Life is either based on Love or Fear. We have to choose our path. Have no expectations and don't be disappointed. Have no fear of the past and we will have confidence in our future. We can and should control our future and our fears. Control them so that we are the powerful force we were meant to be. Not cocky. Not overbearing. Not a bossy, know it all. Just be. Just be a silent, listening, interesting person. No expectations. Be the one people want to talk to, not talk about. Be the one who doesn't enter anywhere, wondering what if. Be the one who smiles and waits to see what happens. It will happen you know. It will happen no matter what. It will happen the way it is supposed to. Without your help or your interference. Make it fun. See what happens when you don't know. Don't care which way things go. You have no control anyway.
So, let go and relax. Love not fear.