This sounds bad, I know. It sounds like pretty much the opposite of what we are often told by the the optimists, preachers and self-helpers of the world. However, I've come to the realization in the last couple years that lowering my expectations of people and things have helped me blossom into a much happier, less anxious person.
Honestly, it all started with some wise counsel from my mother-in-law Donna. Jeremy goes on business to Hawaii twice a year. When Kaden was 2 I decided he and I would fly to Hawaii to be with Jeremy on such a trip. The first time I flew with Kaden, also to Hawaii, he was 11 months old. Long story short, it was NOT GOOD. Just ask all the other people on the plane that day. So, needless to say I was apprehensive to fly with him again and this time without the support of Jeremy or other family members.
Enter wise counselor. Basically Donna told me to go into the plane ride expecting it to be the most horrible experience of my life. She told me when Jamie and Jeremy were young, she would often times go to the grocery store with the silent expectation that both kids would be pulling things off the shelves, running down the aisles, crying and whining the whole time. And the moral of the story was that reality never turned out to be as horrible as what she imagined. If they behaved even slightly better than she expected, the grocery trip was successful and she walked out feeling pretty damn good about the whole thing. Brilliant.
So, that's exactly what I did and have done in similar situations ever since. Sure, I forgot to change Kaden's diaper from a nights worth of pee before boarding the early morning flight and pee got all over his pajama pants. Sure I had to change him right there on the seat and he rode part of the flight to Hawaii in just a t-shirt and a diaper. It didn't even phase me. I expected full blown chaos in the form of a 26 pound child, so whatever mishaps developed in the 5.5 hour plane ride were nothin' compared to my expectations.
Slowly I have began to apply that to other things in life. And while I know it
sounds pessimistic it really does help. I think the reason why so many people are unhappy is because of the high expectations they have for the people and things in their lives. They expect their jobs and income to fulfill them. Material objects are expected to make us feel special and cool. Our spouse is expected to be our everything. And God is expected to fix every wrong and keep us safe from every tragedy. How on Earth can anything live up to all that?
My marriage with Jeremy works for a lot of reasons. I believe one of those is low expectations. He has a demanding job and I know that. He comes home late a lot. Probably as recently as last year, I expected him to be home every night around 6:00 pm, ready and willing to swoop up the kids giving me a much needed break, and when this wouldn't happened I would be so disappointed. It created tension in our relationship. Then I realized that there were months where he was away for work and I was absolutely fine because I wasn't
expecting him to come home and save the day. After that realization, I went into each evening expecting that Jeremy would be late. Dinner, baths, bedtime routine...I'd rock that out on my own and do it happily. A funny thing happened. When Jeremy gets home now, no matter the time, I look at him with sincere happiness to see him, not the look of a woman desperate to be rescued and silently angry that he "chose" work over family once again.
When you stop expecting someone to be your everything, you are then able to truly appreciate them for the person they are. He is not a knight in shining armor. He doesn't complete me or make me whole. He is just a man. A wonderful man that I love for exactly who he is.
With all that said, I am off to go work out for the first time in a long time. I expect it to be excruciatingly painful. ;)
