Great Expectations!

Expectations? The act of looking forward to the probable occurrence or appearance of, or to consider reasonable or due or to consider obligatory or require. Why expectations? Hmmm. All of us have expectations. If void of expectations, I think life would be tremendously boring with nothing to look forward to. Even if we encounter something that is good beyond description, without expectations, it is just another normal experience, and there is no "WOW" feeling.

When we went for a whale watch in Kaikoura New Zealand, we were expecting to see big whales swimming side by side to the boat. We did see the whales, in fact 3 of them and was considered a good day. But we were very far from the whales, and we could only see a small portion of the back part of the whale (the blowhole and the dorsal fin) and the occasional tail when it flipped to dive into the deep. The whales were not that big too. So in this case our expectations were not met, and we came back from the trip greatly disappointed, having paid quite a big for that trip. Yet, on the same trip while the boat was going back to shore, the captain brought us to see dolphins, and there were plenty of them jumping in and out of the water and swimming next next to the boat. If we had hands long enough, we could have touched them! Our main expectation was on the whales and not the dolphins. So in the end, we were more excited over the dolphins than the whales, and for my case, I have seen many dolphins in the wild before but it was my first time seeing a whale.

The above case is an example of an expectation not being met. This is an expectation for something we were looking forward to the probable occurrence or appearance of. Then how about expectations for your family, loved ones, friends, colleagues, acquaintances and strangers. I am sure the expectation levels for all these different groups of people are varied. For this post, I shall just talk about expectations for our friends.

Friends come in many forms - best friend, good friend, normal friend, "pig and dog" friends etc. Again our expectations would be different for each of these categories of friends. I would think that expectations would be relatively low for "pig and dog" and normal friends, while those for good and best friends would be much higher. But high expectations come with a price. When we expect much, we may either be very happy and assured when expectations are met, or we may be devastated when these expectations are not met. When we expect a lot, we also add stress to those whom we expect from. So in the end, the result may not be something desirable, as your friend whom you have high expectations of, may be so overly stressed that they end up missing your expectations altogther. Yet at the same time, if we do not expect much from the best and good friends, then how did we become such friends in the first place??

I think the attitude towards creating an expectation and handling expectations is more important than the actual expectation itself. Of course, having a high expecation met is a nice warm feeling, but when our expectations are not met, how should we handle them? Do we sort things out with the other person that fell short of our expectations or do we just minus points from this person? Either way, if not handled carefully, the end result may be detrimental to the friendship. Personally, I would prefer to talk things out with the other person and find out why the expectations fall short. But I will try to do it in such a way that it does not make the other person think that I am terribly disappointed with the expectations not met. My aim would be to work together to moderate the expectations so that the other person will not feel stressed while I will not get too disappointed. A lot of people insist of having things their own way, saying that life would be very miserable if we cannot be ourselves. When it comes to expectations, I would think moderation would be good.

Enough said, I am sure we have many expectations in life. Sometimes they are met and even exceedingly, while sometimes they fail miserably. I think this adds spice to our lives. It makes life more enriching. If everything is also so nice and smooth sailing, I think that would have been boring too. So what are you expecting today?