“A bird will always use another bird’s feathers to feather its own nest.” – African proverb
We often overvalue the amount of control we have over issues. The “dominion” privilege granted us from the beginning pushes many amongst towards the “we-can-control-life” mentality. And this is in spite of the fact that we are aware of inherent uncertainties in every situation. We almost always expect events and programmes to progress the way we imagine or design it.
Maybe we are so positive of our abilities, uncertainties simply fade as we embark on our expeditions. But time and time again, our expectations of what should happen versus what eventually happens are usually poles apart. In fact, research after research has shown that many of us are denied a fuller appreciation of the reality around us because of our expectations.
But expectations are a part of life. We are wired to learn from our experiences. And every experience sort of places us in a value consciousness where we start expecting certain behaviours and outcomes from ourselves, from others and from events. Thus the value of what we have and what we do depends on what we expect to get out of it.
Interestingly, the understanding and management of expectations are not part of our everyday ‘to-do-list.’ There are many activities we cram into our diaries, but few amongst us include how we align expectations to our relationships, our capabilities and our scope of work. We do not think about it, let alone work on it.
From our relationships to our works to our dreams, we deny ourselves a wealth of wonderfulness because we mostly prefer the stories we tell ourselves of what should happen rather than the logical rules of what could actually happen. We overlook the fact that desiring an event or a relationship should unfurl in a particular manner does not mean that it would happen that way.
Our thoughts cannot direct how life should unfold. Plus, there is something negative about being certain of our expectations that many of us do not know. It is the reason every time we get into the expectant mood. We instinctively believe that the other co-existing possibilities would not, and cannot impactfully change the outcome of our vision. To this end, we relegate some many other happenings in life, into the shadows. And this attitude, is more like denying the existence of breathe.
It is no secret that our greatest motivations are our expectations. The higher the value we believe we can get from a relationship or an event, the more effort we put into it. The challenge we have is that many of us only deal with our expectations. We often ignore that of the other parties. This attitude leads to conflict.
If you partner in your relationship does not know what you expect from him or her, there is a high probability they would behave anyhow. Likewise you would do same, if you do not know what they expect of you. It is the same at the workplace between employer and employees. If we do not clearly know what each other expects, how will we know how to success and how would we prioritise our activities?
Expectations are not a bluff. They are an intrinsic part of our attitude and subsequently our growth. However, because we are not taught to understand and manage ours and that of others, we lose out on a great many possibilities. We struggle to grasp and define expectations as one can grasp and define a tangible concept. What we need to understand is that the moments of life are a finite reality, but they are not always the same throughout a period. This example should make us think about expectations, ours and that of others. We should appreciate how they would ebb and flow with the changes around us, so that we can train ourselves to be adaptable.
The roulette of chance and choice is not one that we have control of. But learning to understand and manage expectations of all parties would enable us to define what the moments needs and what to do to make an impact on the next moment.
One of the lessons in ‘Great Expectations,’ one of the novel by Charles Dickens, was how the main character, Pip was so sure wealth was the necessary ingredient to marrying Estella, the girl of his dreams.
It took him a while to learn how untrue that perception was. But this untruth stemmed more from his ignorance and his inability to seek the expectations of Estella. Likewise, many of us inflict hurts upon ourselves and others because we ignore downplay the role of expectations in our lives. The time has come to make understanding and managing expectations a part of our growth strategy…
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