23:23
"Nobody is in this world to live up to anybody's expectations".
Setting expectations not only demoralizes others, it inflicts negatives feelings of disappointment on you.
Read Pecicci's experience
"When my phone rang and I looked it up, it was my husband. I was particularly in a very good mood that evening but when i answered the call and he was sounding all so bored and tired, apparently he wasn't having a very good day at work. I became disappointed, i had expected he would sound all happy and cheerful. Suddenly i became so angry. I almost dropped the call"
" I took this extremely personally and turned cold and quiet almost immediately. How dare he ruin my perfect evening!?
About ten minutes later, in the parking lot of a grocery store, I had a huge epiphany: He hadn’t ruined anything. It was all me, as my negative feelings were entirely created by my expectations of how he should have behaved."
I had been anticipating that he would be in the same great mood I was, and when he wasn’t, I took it personally. I became upset that he wasn’t acting as I expected. I became angry because he wasn’t meeting the standards I had set. In other words, I was completely responsible for my deflated mood.
I once had the expectation that a new acquaintance would quickly respond to my text and agree that he, too, had a nice time hanging out with me.
When he didn’t, I ended up wondering if he liked me, feeling pretty bad about myself. (he did eventually respond with a very nice text; he’s just a busy person who doesn’t respond to texts immediately!)
I expected an automatic response, and not getting one undermined my happiness.
You can’t control the way people think, feel, or react.You may try to, you may want to, but ultimately, how they act is up to them.
And when you base your feelings of happiness, worth, or confidence on the actions or reactions of other people, you’re setting yourself up for many moments of avoidable misery.
1. Stop expecting other people to act exactly as you would like them to. It’s a game you’re guaranteed to lose. Instead, try being open to any and all reactions from others.
2. Start building up your own happiness and confidence on something you do have power over: your thoughts and beliefs.
When someone does the unexpected and it disappoints you, it’s always because you had a belief about what they were supposed to do.
You believe your son should have gotten better grades, but when he brings home a poor report card, you feel angry and guilty. When you stop believing that your son’s grades are a reflection on you as a parent, and start believing that you’re doing the best you can and letting go of guilt, you suffer less.
3. Stay in the moment as often as you can.
Stay present with your thoughts, and see if you’re holding onto expectations of how other people should behave.
It’s when you slip out of being in the now that you are truly disappointed. When this happens, you’re letting your thoughts and stories about what the other person should have done, or what will happen now because of this perceived slight, or why you deserve to be angry, take you out of the now and down a path that is full of rejection and fear.
The bottom line is that you will not find peace if you’re always expecting other people to give it to you with their actions or words or even love. The only way to find it is to drop your expectations of others, let go of what you think they should or shouldn’t do, and allow yourself to create your own happiness.
If you want a happy and lasting relationship with friends, spouse, parent, acquaintance try living with no particular expectations from them rather, expect any reaction from anybody. that way you stay happy and they too are happy.
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