Expectations Are A Funny Thing

Expectations are a funny thing. 

They exist everywhere whether it's said aloud or not. We are so attached to the written word that we think things don't exist until we write them down. That couldn't be further from the truth. Some things just exist regardless of our intentions. Expectations are one of those things.

We have expectations of our jobs, our relationships, our children. And those things all have expectations of us, some explicit and some not. Explicit expectations are obviously the easiest to understand and manage. Your boss expects you to be physically at work at 8 am and tells you as much. Your significant other expects you to be faithful and tells you as much. Your kids expect to be fed a few times a day, etc. 

But all of these relationships contain non-explicit expectations as well, expectations that no one writes down or says out loud. In the world of remote work, an attendance expectation can be incredibly hard to craft or communicate. What does it mean to "be here at 8" in the digital world? You and your significant other probably have a lot of unwritten expectations of each other. Expectations around quality time, around shared assets, around your sex life, and around the general shape and trajectory of your lives in general. Plenty of couples end up divorced because they don't find out until too late that one person wants kids and the other wants to travel the world.

Expectations are a funny thing.

You have expectations of another person or system who also has expectations of you. And these things can collide. Maybe your partner was raised to think you should always have a cushion of 6 months worth of expenses in savings and you were not. They expect this because they think it's normal and maybe they don't say it out loud because they think it's normal. They think you must obviously have the same expectation. Because they think it's normal they think it is obvious that you would also think it's normal. No one says it out loud because everyone is making assumptions about what they think is normal. 

So what do we do?

We have to break the cycle. We have to say our expectations out loud and then be the type of people who can handle when others say their expectations out loud. Then we have to be willing to work on those expectations. Am I putting an unreasonable expectation on someone? Are they putting an unreasonable expectation on me? 

Sometimes things can't be reconciled. If you want $400,000 a year to wait tables at California Pizza Kitchen you will very likely fall short of that. Are you willing to adjust your expectation? Maybe California Pizza Kitchen wants to charge me $100 for a pizza. They will fall short of that with their customers.

The institutions we live within set a lot of expectations for us. Our upbringing, our culture, our religion. Even the free-market economy will set some expectations, like how much a pizza should cost or how much I can expect to earn working at a pizza restaurant. Disney set some unrealistic expectations with their movies for a lot of young girls who never grew up to be princesses. Social media is constantly setting unattainable expectations of how we should look or how wealthy we should be or how much we should travel to exotic, picturesque locations. 

We have to break the cycle. We have to talk about the expectations we have and the expectations that others have for us and find a way through expectation to happiness. Or at least to contentedness. Because expectations are a funny thing.

(Featured art is "Expectation" by Ilokunst)