Tomorrow at 5:00am Kim and I leave for a week in a cabin with no electricity in Colorado. We are both very excited about all the possibilities for this time, but we are approaching the opportunity very differently. We are going into it wanting and thus expecting such different outcomes. How do we manage to find that happy balance of meeting both our desires?
Clarifying expectations is so important yet it is seldom done effectively and there in lies much of our dissatisfaction in life. We fail to communicate our expectations or fail to do the honest examination required to make our expectations realistic and as a result fail to get our expectations met. Lately it seems like I continually meet with people who are unhappy. Initially they can’t decipher why, but eventually they discover “their expectations” have not been met. Why are we so reluctant to really admit what we want? Are we even really aware of our driving inner desires? I have this theory that our expectations determine everything. Dissatisfaction is merely unmet expectation. Excellence is surpassed expectations. The same experience, the same service in story, the same meal in a restaurant is experienced differently by different people depending entirely on their expectation.
Now I am not suggesting the key to happiness is merely having low expectations of everything, but I am saying we need to be aware of our expectations. Name them. Examine them. See if they are appropriate. See if they are realistic. Sometimes I wonder, why do we always have to have so many expectations? Sometimes can’t we just let things be whatever they turn out to be?
Anyway, I will let you know how it turns out.
I am looking forward to talk with you when you return Jay. In a place with so much stillness, the voice of God should be loud and clear.
Comment by Dennis Rice — July 22, 2008 @ 8:50 am |