WATCH OUT FOR YOUR UNREALISTIC EXPECTATIONS!THEY CAN CLOBBER YOU

Yes, cats can expect dinner promptly at five, dogs expect a walk twice a day, you

can expect to hear from your mother if you don’t call at exactly the same time

every Sunday. But all that is really conditioning. Expectations, living in the future,

with possibly unrealistic or exaggerated fantasies, a singularly human ability,

often leads to heartache and disappointment. So unnecessary and painful! When

...this...then ...this. When I find my future mate, then I’ll be happy and complete.

When I have my own baby, then I’ll feel fulfilled, my life will be perfect. When I

get that promotion, then I’ll be satisfied with my life. Woops. Life is rarely so

formulaic.

Social media doesn’t help! If we follow this diet, we should expect to lose a

hundred pounds in a week. If we buy this mascara, we can expect men to flop all

over us. If we are sweet and compliant, we can expect people to love us.

Where positive expectations get us in the most trouble is when we draw a rosy,

perfect picture of the future that ends up being far away from the actual reality.

The actual reality could be perfectly fine, but can be ruined by unrealistic

expectations! For example:

We expect that if we pick the right mate, ours will be a wonderful marriage

guaranteed to last a lifetime. No matter how high the divorce rate, we expect our

unions will be different! Why?

We expect that motherhood will be a blessing! Everyone, including our mothers,

tell us so. (And mothers don’t lie! Do they?). The first six months to year of life is

truly the toughest time in a woman’s existence. It’s lonely, exhausting, and

boring. It gets better, but wouldn’t it be easier if you could expect it to be hard

and not feel like an awful person for craving a hot bath?

We expect to want to have sex with our partners forever. What’s wrong with me

that I don’t feel much of anything but apathy about intimacy after a few years?

We expect our “close” friends to be there when we’re in trouble. After all, we

were always there for them. What’s wrong with me that my friends are not

reaching out to help me through this breakup? This time of grief? This period of

depression?

We expect to finally feel contentment when we reach a certain professional level

we had sacrificed and struggled to achieve. What’s wrong with me if I’m still not

happy?

What if people were actually truthful. How much shame and isolation and

confusion would that negate?

Yes, the first six to nine months of motherhood can suck. It will pass!

Yes, it’s normal to feel disappointed in one’s marriage. When we accept that daily

life is daily life, married or not, that’s when contentment flourishes.

Yes, getting a big promotion, a huge salary, the admiration of your peers is

wonderful. But when you’re alone in your corner office, don’t feel surprised if

there’s a sense of emptiness.

I invite you to slow down and base your expectations on what you know about a

situation. Not what you want to have happen, but given past experiences, what

you can realistically expect to happen. Don’t run into anything before you can

ascertain if the situation is safe, the person reliable, the risk manageable. “I

thought this time it would be different.” Sigh.

BUT WHAT ABOUT NEGATIVE EXPECTATIONS? CATASATROPHIZING?

For a multitude of humans, there is the ever-present, soul-crushing, ever-lurking

expectation that everything will fall apart, you will fail, life will suck, horrible

things will happen. That’s not fun. Nor is it anything near reality. My favorite

saying, by Samuel Clemens, is “I spent 90% of my life worrying about things that

never happened.”

If you knew these expectations were just that. Expectations. Not reality. What

difference would it make for you?

I invite you float down to earth. Picture a normal curve (like the back of a turtle).

Nature, gravity, life usually falls somewhere in the middle of the turtle’s back. The

“ends”, the turtle’s head and tail, are exceptions. You probably won’t be a

billionaire, but you probably won’t be a poor church mouse either. Life rarely falls

in the extremes. That’s why it’s called the NORMAL curve!

Here are some Buzelian sayings to counter Unrealistic Expectations (None too

original)

 We can romanticize our past, dream about our future, but we’re here now.

 Unwrap each day, and allow yourself to be pleasantly surprised by life.

 Though sometimes it doesn’t feel that way, every morning is a gift.

 Live in curiosity, not dread. The end result will be the same, but the ride

will be oh so much more pleasant!