When it comes to expectations, we seem to encounter all sorts of issues.
Sometimes, we think that we should lower our expectations so we don’t get disappointed. Other times, we set them really high because we want to attract positive things in our lives.
How is it really supposed to be???
It may be annoying, but there really is no set manual for life. In many cases, we have to wing it, or at the very least, adjust our perspective to suit the situation.
I’ve been struggling with expectations lately – from both sides. On the one hand, I struggle with others’ expectations from me; expectations that I don’t/can’t/won’t meet. On the other hand, I also struggle with my expectations from others.
What to do? It’s a long process which I am only starting to figure out, but here are some quotes I have been looking at in my quest to deal with expectations. I hope they help you, too!
- The expectations of life depend upon diligence; the mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools. ~Confucius
- If you expect nothing from anybody, you’re never disappointed. ~ Sylvia Plath
- When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are. ~Donald Miller
- I’m not in this world to live up to your expectations and you’re not in this world to live up to mine. ~Bruce Lee
- There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations. ~Jodi Picoult
- Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack. ~ Brandon Sanderson
- The best things in life are unexpected – because there were no expectations. ~Eli Khamarov
- If you align expectations with reality, you will never be disappointed. ~Terrell Owens
- You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations. ~Stevie Wonder
- You don’t always get what you expect. I wish someone, sometime when I was growing up, would have told me what expectations would get me…Our parents, schools, everyone tells us things will be a certain way when we’re adults and if they’re not that way, we should make them be; or at least pretend. But after a certain point that just doesn’t work. ~Chris Crutcher
- Whatever happens in the world is real, what one thinks should have happened is projection. We suffer more from our fictitious illusion and expectations of reality. ~Jacque Fresco
- We don’t want people to have expectations of us, but then we have expectations of everybody else. ~Lauryn Hill
- There’s a victory in letting go of your expectations. ~Mike White
Originally posted on January 23, 2014 @ 10:21 am
