Expectations – how much is too much

Has anyone paid any attention to the ordeal it brings when you hear “You should have managed mine/their expectations?”

People who set standards feel others who are required to meet their expectations are under their control. If all you need is to control and tame others on the whims and fancies of your choices so you can hold your head high even if it means to bury the person six-feet under the ground, you would do it because it gives you a sense of achievement. But the person, who’s nailed down and expected to meet your needs and desires, imagine the state! The fluctuations in the mind of such a human, definitely takes a toll on the stability of the being.

So I had to look at what an expectation is. First off, it is not a promise. It is not a guarantee of a specific outcome. It is not a demand made to the Universe that our desires be met. As I looked more deeply I saw that it is simply how we are framing both the present and the future for ourselves. It is a creative act, based on past experience, energized by emotions and feelings, and modified by our imagination and desires.

It is surprising to see how we allow whom we love so deeply and dearly, consciously or sub-consciously to influence our life and how deep those influences lies that we forget, they are slowly but surely taking a shape of the expectations from them on us and from then on it is just a train of things which goes from meeting one to another. While you strive hard to prove yourself worthwhile so that it fulfills their desires, your happiness takes a backseat. And the next thing you know is you are hurt, devastated when you get to know that their expectations are not met. 

It is absolutely fair to be impulsive the moment you know someone expects something from you. It gets you going to prove your worth. But what is also absolutely necessary is to have your heart in the right place in order to understand how realistic the expectations are. In any relationship, say mother-son, father-daughter, siblings, husband-wife, teacher-student; there is a certain level of responsibility. But as time passes and as the relationship grows, some tend to get more fragile because there is only one person among the two who is constantly expecting the other to change as per his/her desires so that the opposite individual is the one to shoulder the burden of the entire relationship to move ahead and being obsessed to win the you-met-my-expectations trophy from the other. 

With the evolution of expectations comes the epiphany that you can lose yourself in this journey to be what you are not. Not all of us can be size zero. And then you go there and that takes away the focus from your life. You are so busy in comparing yourself to others that you lose your true identity and you start to get uncomfortable in what you are and who you are. You are expected to change, you do change and one fine day you are told the most favorite phrase “you've changed. You’re not the same person anymore.” That’s the irony. Of course, change is inevitable. But to make it a part of your life so much so that you get demoted as you change and eventually start to feel suffocated is not what you set out for. Just as you put a statutory warning against smoking, some people consider it as their birth right to expect from everyone around them and have a face that screams out ‘this behavior is not acceptable by you and you will be punished.’ 

I personally feel that you need to set your own expectations and you need to be in full control of how and when to alter it as per your capabilities and not let an external force, even if it is a being who is closest to you, to alter or set expectations for you. Else you will never find an answer for how much is too much of expectation. Think!