Expectations
Expectations, the source of all disappointments!
Some people are upset if you don’t call them everyday, others are happy if you call them once a week. It all starts to fall apart with the pressure of having to live up to someone’s expectations.
Expectations come in many flavors: expectations of wealth, of love, of intelligence, of strength, of performance, of attention, of care, … all expectations kill a relationship by a thousand cuts:
The vast majority of romantic love relationships lasts less than 3 years.
Family becomes a burden, leading to cutting the bridges and disintegration.
Kids grow frustrated and develop resentments towards their parents, ending with a breakdown.
At the root of the above examples, and many other situations, lie expectations, mainly but not only, unmet expectations! And some expectations, no matter what, can never be met. Expectations exercise on any relationship a constant pressure, which, with time, creates cracks. With more time and more pressure, these cracks turn into breakages and finally lead to the disintegration of the relationship!
Can a person love another one without any “claimed” expectations or even “insinuations” of expectations? If he/she succeeds to do this, as loving mothers do with their children, he/she will be loved back with the same strength and tenderness as these loving mothers would be. Moreover, strangely enough, if a person has no “claimed” expectations, he/she will be given relentlessly beyond their “inner” expectations! He/she will receive abundantly to be thanked for the peace of mind he/she is providing by not claiming his/her entitlements for his/her “claimed” expectations.
Easier said than done. Yes and No!
Yes, it is hard, even impossible to live without “claimed” expectations when the mere existence of the other person is not a sufficient source of peace of mind, joy and satisfaction.
No, it is not so hard, it is actually quite easy to live without “claimed” expectations when the other person gives you what they can, and this brings you all you need from that person.
Expectations are the embodiment of human nature acting, unknowingly, against its own joy and peace of mind!
There is a close connection between expectations/admiration. In the following paragraphs I would like to explore this connection and its impact on our lives.
Expectations and admiration are a sentiment and an act of will.
Expectations are the hope of the realization of an implicit promise, whereas admiration is the respect and devotion towards the idealized other. Expectations and admiration are very tightly correlated: for the subject, expectations are meant to lead him/her to satisfaction; therefore they require and lead to the admiration towards the other who is fulfilling them. To the object of the expectations, it is the admiration he/she has towards the subject that pushes him/her to identify with the subject expectations, to adopt them and to fulfill them.
Nevertheless, both acts are often subjective (disposition, perception, or intention of the subject). The idea of expectations or admiration belongs to the subject and has no life outside of him/her. In certain cases (parents/children, or couple relations), it might become objective, only if the other side is consenting to it.
Constructive expectations/established admiration
Expectations/Admiration gives a meaning to life. First and foremost, expectations are constructive because they bring to the subject and the object, motivation, stability (in the sense of choice of life direction), evolution (towards a better state), confidence that begets complicity, well being (as a consequence of the established harmony), thrust of life, for as much as expectations represent the source of imagined pleasures, the flame that awakens the pictures of things. We often speak of the joy of waiting, the gentleness of waiting, …
Expectations requires from the one and the other, self-giving and abnegation, in order to fulfill the expectations purpose, which is nothing other that contentment. The parents/children relation is the best example of constructive expectations. Couples or friends are, in general, incapable of living this expectations/admiration experience without wanting an immediate personal benefit.
Admiration is subdued to expectations. It is meant to express deep respect and appreciation between the one and the other. It is the crowning of the subject satisfaction and the source of motivation to the object, and vice versa. However, to earn it, one should be well disposed to deploy a fair amount of efforts. It is said: “it forces the admiration …”
At the same time, we also talk about “hopeless expectations”, “fooled expectations”, and “lost expectations”. These types of expectations lead to disillusion, destruction or breakage.
Destructive expectations/declared admiration-repulsion
Expectations/admiration impose constraints on life. On one side, by their inherent functioning, expectations are suspended, suspended in time, suspended to the desire of the subject, suspended to the willingness of the object. Expectations can this constitute the biggest obstacle to life. On the other side, by their essence, expectations are short-lived feelings taking birth in the subject imagination, and therefore susceptible of hiding reality or the true nature of the other person. Expectation become then destructive, whereas admiration shows other nuances, as presented below:
Hopeless Expectations: the other is aware of these expectations, but doesn’t feel concerned, and is not involved; he/she expresses superficial and false admiration. The subject turns into sterile obstinacy and becomes frustrated in his/her feelings of admiration.
Fooled Expectations: the other is aware of these expectations, feels concerned, but doesn’t get involved, and doesn’t feel any admiration. Expectations not being met, admiration from the subject transforms into resentment and hatred.
Lost Expectations: the other might be or not aware of the expectations, but in any case doesn’t feel concerned, nor is involved. The other’s admiration towards the subject is envy. The subject break the connection, indifference sets in, even if affection persists.
Declared and Undeclared Expectations
No matter which situation we are in, eventually every undeclared expectation is deemed to fail (hopeless, fooled, or lost), because the perfect reading of the intention of the other, and thus the knowledge and understanding of his/her expectations, are impossible. Surely, luck can make impossible things possible, and all expectations can be met, all the time, by a miraculous conjecture. This kind of exception confirms the above stated evidence.
The majority of declared expectations also remain unmet, because if expectations are based on the admiration of one person to another, this admiration doesn’t last very long, except in very rare cases.
The only case that might beget constructive expectations is the one between parents and children. Even if often the children, at a certain age, stop admiring their parents, the latter continue to admire their creation and adapt their expectations, consciously or unconsciously, to the level of their child, so they can be met and avoid disappointment. Even in this self-deceiving scheme, it doesn’t work every time. Diminished expectations become at some point irrelevant and then cease to have a real substance or existence. And this in turn put the last nail on the coffin of admiration. Parents’ despair and sadness ensue…
The case of child à parent relation is less certain, but more interesting. As mentioned above, often, at some point of their lives, children lose their admiration to their parents, maybe to find it back later. During this period of lack of admiration towards the creator, the children expectations towards their parent cease to exist. Later, when these expectations might come back, because they fulfill the need of the children to satisfy their expectation towards themselves and complete thus their self-admiration, they come back more resilient, since they are not based on the admiration of the other, but on self-admiration. Resilient but not indestructible! Expectations might vanish when the hope of fulfilling their self-admiration through their parents vanishes. With this unfulfilled hope, our children grow to become parents, with unsatisfied expectations and a frustrated admiration towards themselves.
In summary, everything starts with a mother and a father raising a child. The parent/children relation is anchored in past-unfulfilled expectations and is projected unto the created beings, who can, by fulfilling these expectations, give us the illusion that we fulfilled them ourselves. This fundamental relation reminds me of the famous thought by Gibran K. Gibran: “often we borrow from our tomorrows to pay our debts of yesterday” and I will add, « and perpetuate, thus, this eternal escape towards a future that we always imagine better than our past and our present.” Expectations strike again!!!