Expectations

Sharon and I continue to work through Peter Scazzero's book, "Emotionally Healthy Spirituality." The chapter for this week talks about expectations. Pete suggests that, for most of us, most of our expectations are
Unconscious: we're not even aware we have them
Unrealistic: those around us cannot live up to them
Unspoken: we've never bothered to actually tell others what we expect of them
Un-agreed upon: the others in our life have never agreed to even attempt to fulfill our expectations because the expectations are unrealistic or because they are unaware of our expectations

As a result, we are disappointed or angry with the others in our life because they have let us down. In many cases without even knowing we had expectations for them.

Pete writes that expectations are only valid when they have been mutually agreed upon. Then he asks the rhetorical question about what would happen if we made our expectations
Conscious
Realistic
Spoken
Agreed upon

The challenge for us is to either change how we view our expectations or lower our expectations.

Now here's the "what if" for those of you who graciously read this blog. The Holiday season is notorious for unmet expectations. What if we worked on making our expectations conscious, realistic, spoken and agreed upon? It doesn't take much reflection to come to the conclusion that we will probably enjoy our Holidays much more because we'll be living in truth rather than fantasy. That is my prayer for you.