Why people keep disappointing you.

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I've come to observe that I don't normally set high expectations for people as much as most of my friends do. For example, if someone borrows my jacket, I don't necessarily expect them to bring it back clean, smelling good, or something like that; I simply want them to bring it back, that's all.

I might not expect someone to deliver a piece of work in two weeks, even when I know that it can be done in two days or even less. I simply expect that person to deliver the work when they said they would. I don't mind if they said in two months, or six, as long as they deliver when they said they would.

Sometime back I almost ran mad because I couldn't understand why people couldn't live up to these seemingly low expectations. "I didn't ask for much, all I asked was that you do A or B." I would cry out each time.

I always thought to myself, This person must really have low self-discipline, or they are just very unserious, immature or whatever I would conclude was the reason for their failure to live up to the minimum standards I'd set for them. This was the case until I failed at my own minimum standards one day. 

I have never been happy about failure like I was at that time. I realized that people don't disappoint because they are immature or undisciplined, I realized that people disappointed me simply because I put expectations on them.

"What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law..."

Romans 7:7

There would be no disappointment without expectations.

We see this throughout the Old Testament.

People keep on disappointing you because you set expectations for them. Literally, there is no problem with the people, the problem is with the expectations we place on them.

Imagine I told you I am a pastor. Without meeting me, you'll have already set expectations for me. Your mind has automatically defined what I can and can't do, in that when I turn out to be below your expectations of me, you are disappointed. 

You are not disappointed because I am an immature pastor, you are disappointed because I didn't reach your expectations.

 

How about, instead, when I tell you that I am a pastor, you understand that that's my title, and you then allow me to define my life standards through my own actions as we move on, without you having to prejudge what a pastor should or should not be or do.

 

Another good example is our bosses. In most cases, the moment you meet your new boss, you automatically have expectations for him or her. Let's say you're female and your boss is a he, and then he asks you out. Normally, before you even find out whether he is single or not, you are already very disappointed in him, simply because you had set expectations of him (that him being your boss, he should probably be already married and perhaps even have children).

Having expectations is not always a bad thing, especially in close relationships. Besides the fact that generally laws/expectations in themselves are a stumbling block, even worse are uncommunicated expectations.

If we really need to have expectations, then at the very least we need to communicate them, after which we don't need to hold the people accountable like a self-righteous judge would do.

People often disappoint us because we set expectations for them, little knowing that expectations are expectations, low or high, they always put pressure on other people. The people have no problem, our expectations are the problem. 

Adios friends.

Till next Wednesday.

Stay blessed.