Less Expectations

[bluidkiti]

Less Expectations

This is one of the harder parts of “expectations” to talk about. The part where we expect so much from some people and we’re let down so hard. I’m not talking about the one-time thing or even the two-time thing. I’m speaking to the ones of us who have been let down over and over again, so much so that our heart is stubborn to call on hope again.

Our trust has been broken. Our spirits have been torn in two. Disappointment is a powerful emotion. Expectations not met when assigned to others comes with some pretty gnarly side effects.

A few years ago, I met a friend for breakfast. Old diners— the kind that doesn’t change a thing about their decor or the way they make their potatoes over a stretch of 20 years— make me feel safe like everything will be okay because the world still has eggs and black coffee in it.

We were talking about relationships as we moved our eggs around our plates and I told her about some hurt feelings I had. How they felt like burns, taking longer to heal than I expected. How I lost trust in a friend and how it kept happening. How I felt like a fool.

“You have to loosen your expectations on some people,” she told me, taking another sip of her coffee. “Not all people, but some.”

She told me I was still hurt because I kept placing expectations where they likely shouldn’t be placed anymore. Trust broken is a real thing and it requires us to act accordingly. That doesn’t mean trust can’t be rebuilt but there are sometimes in our lives and relationships where we must revisit the expectations we try to hold others to.

She went on to tell me there are some people you should relieve of expectations entirely. You accept the truth: that this person never acts how you hope they will act. They don’t come through. They never pay you back. They’re never grateful. They won’t be there when they promise to be there. You’re continually let down and it is hurting your heart something awful.

Now I want to be clear: people are not here, living and breathing on this planet, to meet your expectations. That is not what I am saying. We are called to love people through the valleys and the peaks, not because of who someone may or may not become, but because we’re all children of the same good God and love is the language he placed on our tongues to speak. But sometimes we must loosen or dismiss the expectations we have for a person to protect the heart from false hoping.

That’s not to say you are giving up on the person. Nor does it mean you should tell that person you’ve given up on expecting anything from them. You’re just taking away the power they hold to hurt you. Chances are, they aren’t even aware they’re hurting you. You’re putting up a boundary because you weren’t made to live your one life broken down over how you hoped someone else would treat you.

Here are a few alternatives:

You keep expecting: You keep your hopes high. And then you watch them crash. And then you build them up again but with a little less optimism. And the whole thing repeats itself.

It is not wrong to hope in people but trust is something that is built, it’s not automatically there. The problem with continually expecting when it comes to people with bad track records is you’re the one who gets hurt. You’re the one who becomes angry. My experience with these sorts of people who can’t keep a promise to save their own butts is that they rarely see if they’ve hurt you or they become defensive and turn the blame onto you.

You eventually lose it: You lose your marbles and whatever sweet part of that relationship you do have because of expectations that needed to be thwarted. You’re so mad that you no longer can just text them with encouragement or say happy birthday. Bitterness becomes a sidekick whenever that person is brought up and bitterness is a pretty unbecoming feeling.

You vent. A ton. Beyond the point of it being necessary: This has been my problem in the past. I’ll admit that it seemed like at some junctures I was happy to be let down because that fueled me with drama and I’m a storyteller. We, storytellers, love a good bit of drama.

I’ll also say that I’ve come such a long way in this area from who I used to be. I learned in the last few years that whatever is your greatest strength can also double as your Achilles heel. In my case, the strength was words and my words could either be balm or venom. I get the choice daily.

I have a friend who is continually let down by her brother and it breaks her heart all the time. She has such high hopes for him but she confuses those hopes as expectations and those expectations are never met. Meanwhile, her brother walks around the world just as he is and she’s the one who cannot come free from bitterness and disappointment.

I don’t have much hope that her brother will become this person she’s expecting him to be but I have hope she will release those expectations eventually and just come to love him for what is there.

It’s freeing to get to the place where you are able to love someone as they are and especially if they never become who you expected them to be. This “no contingency plan” kind of love is the type Jesus toted all over this planet. He promises to love, even in the shortcomings.

This doesn’t mean a person never changes. It doesn’t mean that change wouldn’t be a very good thing for them. It just means you’re not responsible for it anymore. You relinquish false control, open up your hands, and finally have the space to receive something better.

My friend in the diner goes on to tell me that when you free yourself from expectations then you are able to love people more radically than you ever expected.

I can tell you this method really works. It frees you. You see, if you’ve got a friend who doesn’t ever respond back to your texts then the dialogue can easily become, “They didn’t respond to my text and if they were a good friend then they would have.” And then this anger starts to rise up and rule you. Your day is hijacked by outside circumstances and you’re lashing out at your boyfriend because the phone shows the read receipt but that friend is still silent.

But you hold the power to change that script. You could send the text and say to yourself, “I want to send this text because it matters to me. And I have no expectation that I am going to hear back.”

You do the thing anyway but you free yourself in the process.

You are able to send the text to that person and, because the expectation that they’ll respond is no longer hovering, you are free to go about your day. You have more room and mental space to love others. You’re less angry and the “I knew this would happen” voice in the back of your head doesn’t get its moment to shine.

You are free to love that person without any expectations. You stop asking them to pay you back. You invite them to the party but the expectation is no longer there that they’ll walk through the door. And you know what happens if they do show up? You’re pleasantly surprised and you get to serve them cake and bacon wrapped dates. But there’s no longer desperate anticipation hanging the air, the question of: will they let me down again?

Because people will let you down. It’s part of life. It’s how the fragile exterior is broken off of us and how it grows back again, this time thicker. To let go of your expectations with some people isn’t you giving up on them, it’s a way of saying, “I love you. I love you but I have to protect myself in the process. I love you and that’s not contingent on whether you show up or you say what I want you to say or you go to church or you pay me back. I just love you because I love you and this is my boundary.”

And poof— you start to come free. You’ve set your expectations in the right place and now your day cannot be governed by what a person did or did not say back to you. This is adulthood magic. It really is.

Life is too short to live every day wondering if others are going to let us down. That’s where the devil would love for us to land— hurt, bitter and closed off. Let’s send the text. Let’s release control. Let’s love anyway, no matter the outcome. --hb