Expectations

Thursday, November 30, 2006
Current mood: tired
Category: Blogging

I used to live life trying to not have high expectations for most things - I feel that you tend to always be let down. In the beginning it started off as not wanting to watch movie trailers at all because then you would have an expectation of what the movie is going to be like and will always be slightly disappointed even if it is a great movie. Generally when I have gone to see a movie that I have no idea what it is even about it is always a great surprise and more enjoyable then if I had known what it was going to be.

So i tried to bring this philosophy into my life and tried not to have expectations about events, people or anything in the future. Superficially this does work to some degree, as it is true that one does enjoy random spur of the moment activities or events in life. Like when you go to an ordinary braai that causes you to meet someone new and interesting that starts you on a new path in life.

But it works only up to a point. You could try as hard as you like not to have expectations but then the sneaky little subconscience is always at work setting up those expectations whether you like it or not. I realise now that I will always have high expectations of friends and people in my life. I have trust and faith in them enough to let them into my life so therefore I cant help wanting the best.

When it comes to people I think you need to be able to sort out in your mind who are the people that are going to keep disappointing you and lower those expectations. And then hopefully they will exceed your expectations every now and then.

The other thing is to try not to have too high an expectation for things that are still to happen in your life. Like an up coming event. This is what i battle with most of the time these days - the fact that you are hoping, waiting, anticipating something happening and you have no idea if it is going to be as great as you imagined or if it is going to even happen at all. So all i can do is sit and hope for the best and try not let my fantasies run too wild.

And now for the flipside of the coin...other peoples expectations of you. I feel that people have extremely impossibly high expectations of me. I feel that I always have to live up to these expectations even if it is to the detriment of my own self. But invariably it will still not be good enough and they will have no problem making me feel like absolute shit whether they know that or not.

So how does one live selfishly without being selfish?
How when i believe that each person is responisible for their own happiness am i supposed to be responsible to everyone else?
How so I get things not to effect me so much that i land up with something worse then the stomach ulcer that I have reeking havoc with my insides?
SOmedays I feel i would be very happy on that deserted island with no one else ....