Of troublesome expectations...

The word expectation has jumped out at me a couple of times in the last 24 hours, and I'm taking notice. It first hit me as I was reading Annie's 12/11/05 post http://newliferising.blogspot.com (forgive my ignorance of basic html-one of those gaps I referred to in my last post-any pointers would be greatly appreciated!) where she said that "True gratitude requires letting go of expectations." The more I think about it, that is one of the most profound statements I've ever read. I'm amazed that I'm just now understanding this (actually I'm disappointed, because I expected to have figured this out sooner...see what I'm talking about?) Unhappiness in large part simply boils down to not getting or not having what you want (or think you deserve), which implies that you expected something else in its place. And it doesn't even have to be something specific, just "not this," whether "this" is the quality of your relationship, or your Christmas present.

Logic would then say that if you remove expectation, you would lose most of your ability to be unhappy, because it wouldn't allow for the possibility of something better than what is. If any of you have ever read C.S. Lewis's PERELANDRA (2nd book in his space trilogy, which is a must read even if you're not into science fiction), then you'll remember how "The Green Lady" (read: Eve) had no concept of there being anything other than what was. So for example, if she was eating a certain fruit, it would never occur to her to think, 'I'd rather have a different fruit.' Her only thought would be 'The fruit I have is good.' She didn't understand what it meant to contemplate alternatives, and therefore, she had absolutely no expectations about anything in her life.

Now for "The Green Lady," having no expectations wasn't a problem, because she lived in a world that hadn't fallen, and so everything that happened was good. Even if she were to contemplate alternatives, the alternative would be just the same as the reality in terms of "goodness." But in a world where everything isn't good and there are numerous degrees of both good and evil, it's almost impossible to avoid having expectations about how your life should be.

This is all coming from a problem that I'm now discovering that I have in relationships. I expect too much and continuously get frustrated when she doesn't act in the way I expect, or more precisely, think I deserve. I make it a point with girls to go beyond every expectation they've ever had about guys, and I've been very successful at that. Just about every girl I've ever dated will tell you that I surpassed all who came before me in terms of how I treated her and how special I made her feel. I love that. It makes me giddy when I think up an idea for a fun date that I know no other guy has ever done, or will ever do for her in the future. And even in simple matters of seeking out time for each other or just doing the things I say I'm going to do even if it's not convenient for me, I'm really good about that stuff.

But unfortunately, these same girls will probably tell you that there were points in our relationships where they felt like they were expected to be (or react) a certain way and that I did a very poor job of hiding my disappointment when they didn't meet my expectations. It's true, and I'm ashamed. I can think of several specific instances where I acted disapproving when something I did wasn't received like I thought it should be or things just didn't go like I thought they would in my head. It looks like I'm in the business of expecting others to act like I do in relationships, and that's not good, especially since my motto is to do everything better than everyone else. I've got a lot more thinking and posting to do on this, but it's getting late. More to come...