Failing Other’s Expectations?

Question: So I keep looking for words or passages on how to deal with the feelings that arise when others intimate you have not done your best, when in fact you always try to do so. I guess that’s the feeling of failing other’s expectations. What do you think?

Response: I think you’ve nailed the cause. Expectations (from others and yourself) create some pretty intense emotions. When your mind ruminates on these things they get magnified and take on a life of their own. A couple of thoughts on how I deal with expectations (and by no means believe that I’m good at it).

Mindstorms

One of the things that meditation teaches you is that your mind can spin up some pretty intense storms. If you let the storm drag you along, you’ll end up suffering. Think of it like a dog; the mind is the tail. Letting thoughts drag you down is like the tail wagging the dog. You’ve become the slave to these meandering mental formations.

One aspect of meditation is developing a mature relationship with your thoughts. It’s just like prioritizing tasks. You are more productive when you focus your attention on the high priority things and don’t get pulled into the small things (Don’t sweat the small stuff?).

Observing your thoughts in meditation gives you insight into how random thoughts can be. Sometimes, they can be a huge distraction and keep you from the important stuff. Other times they are right on and demand your attention. Discerning the difference is the skill that meditation develops.

As far as expectations are concerned, discerning whether or not they are important is very useful skill.

Other People’s Problems

I heard a speaker at work the other day who mentioned something that put other people’s expectations in perspective. If you think about it, we’re always thinking about ourselves. It’s a fact. So, how important could someone else’s expectations of you be to them? My guess is that they’re pretty trivial and their interest in your behavior is only from the perspective of how they can benefit.

Communication is always one part message and one part relationship. When people forget about the relationship, they tend to be cold and harsh (I can get like this). When you recognize this behavior in others, you have a right to point it out. An expectation is a demand on your time and energy. It is fair to say that if there is an expectation for you to produce something or behave in a certain way, that there be something in it for you. At the very least you should be motivated to comply.

It’s also fair to acknowledge that, first and foremost, work done is worthy of praise. A recognition of the complexity involved in getting the work done should be accepted as part of the outcome. You can’t please everyone all of the time. Inversely, one should not expect to be pleased all the time (expectations on expectations).

Compassion

This leads to one of the most fundamental Buddhist ideas —karuna translated as compassion. The word is from the Latin, meaning to share in suffering. These experiences of suffering arise from expectations and wanting to be pleased all the time. Because we rarely get what we expect or want, we always end up disappointed.

Connecting with this insight is key to the Buddhist path of liberation. When we recognize that we ourselves constantly seek pleasure and satisfaction of our expectations, oblivious to the fact that most of the time we fail, a lightning bolt strikes. Despite all of our intelligence and maturity we keep doing the same things over and over again. We keep failing over and over again, and act surprised when we fail again.

This disease is human nature. When we recognize it, it seems appropriate to develop some compassion for ourselves. When we see it in others, we should recognize it as the same disease. This makes us companions on the same quest for healing and liberation.

This recognition can give us a little space in which we can process how we and the antagonists in our stories feel. This isn’t the last step, but it’s a good first step towards shifting the conversation from a cold exchange of information to a dialog between two people in a relationship.

If you liked this piece, please take a moment to recommend it!

Originally published at www.andrewfurst.net on February 1, 2016.