Unrealistic Expectations and Disappointment

Since COVID came on the scene many people have a heightened awareness of the concept of uncertainty and how it plays a role in our lives.  Uncertainty lies at the heart of many forms of fear and anxiety as we are never sure of any guaranteed security, consistency, or reliability of the foundations of our day to day lives.  So we build up the best expectation we can put together based on information, patterns, perception, and any other pieces of data we are able to apply to the situation in order to attempt to get a feel for how things might pan out.  From all of this information we develop a belief about something.  This belief helps us decipher how it will end up or what the most likely thing is to occur.  But when that outcome doesn't happen, disappointment sets in and that is a form of suffering.

These three concepts:  Uncertainty, Expectation, and Disappointment,  make a frequently traveled circular pattern for many of us.  These three feed on one another and can produce a cyclical pattern of thinking and feeling that leads to anxiety and depression.  But this pattern can be interrupted by focusing on the middle concept... Expectations.

Expectations are beliefs we create in our minds about how something will potentially turn out.  Our belief about the situation or event is sometimes based on fact, but other times our expectations can be built on false beliefs that have built-in unrealistic qualities that are sure to fail since being unrealistic in the first place makes them impossible to achieve and create a delusional scenario not even based in reality.

Perfectionists know this all too well in that they might create unrealistic expectations for themselves and others that can never be reached or would require sacrifices that in themselves are unrealistic, so failure is guaranteed and with failure comes disappointment.  These series of events lead only to a sinking feeling of defeat which can be accompanied by a lot of negative self-talk, discouraging thoughts and false beliefs that lead to hopelessness.

Here are some things to keep in mind when setting goals with realistic expectations:

• Take an inventory of information you have to date about any given situation you are working with.  This information can guide you about what is realistic to expect of yourself and others based on evidence to date.  This past information serves as your foundation to get started.
• Know that what is realistic for one person is not the same for someone else.  You may have high expectations for yourself, but putting these on others may be unrealistic because well... they aren't you, and for them it isn't the same thing.  Also, don't expect yourself to live up to the expectations that others place on themselves.  Expectations are not the same for everyone.
• Remind yourself that expectation level for ourselves and others is like a moving target.  You might be able to accomplish something next year, but not this year.  You might be able to expect something from your boss or employees today, but maybe you can't expect it all the time.  The level and realistic quality of expectations changes all the time.  Assess the given situation realistically.
• Make sure you've built flexibility into your expectations so you can make adjustments as you go.  In other words, don't be so rigid with tasks and projects that you leave no room for changing your mind, realizing you need to take a break or let up on something a little.  Or maybe you realize you set your goals and tasks too light and can pick up the pace more than you thought.  Be ready and willing to change your mind, readjust, and change the game plan if necessary.

"Expectations are resentments waiting to happen."  ~Brene Brown

Thanks to Kristian Bjornard for the great photo

Having Realistic Expectations is the Way out of Suffering

Disappointment is something most of us learn at an early age.  We can get disappointed due to just about anything we've built up an expectation about, and our expectations get built up because we come to believe something will be a certain way.  But when it's not the way we expected, then disappointment comes.

There are small disappointments like believing your usual ice cream will be readily on the shelf (although I'm probably projecting on this one) and then due to COVID it turns out that many things are suddenly out of stock for a while and it sinks in that you just won't be able to have what you were once used to having.  

Small disappointments can also be simple things like thinking a package will be delivered on time but finding out it's been delayed, or looking forward to a movie with a good friend, but the friend needs to cancel due to some event that has come up in their life.

Disappointments are unfortunate, but they are a part of life and so we learn to cope with them and take them in stride.  We learn that not everything will go the way we expect or at least hope it will go.  So disappointment is usually something that we humans can handle and move on from.

But there is a new kind of disappointment going on right now in the world that has a much more personal tone to it, and that is the disappointment we feel when we've expected our fellow human beings to be much more ethical, moral, honest, sane, and even civil than we find them out to be.  Or we are at least witnessing them to be.  

Maybe we'd had an unspoken belief that no matter what our differences or disagreements, we'd at least be able to trust that those we thought we knew would not stoop to such levels of behavior.  And it is disappointing to experience because once we've witnessed otherwise, all trust is broken.  Sometimes we even believe that our enemies themselves will not go beyond a certain point of behavior, even though they are our enemies.  We believe that war crimes won't take place, and everyone will follow national and international laws the same way we'd all obey a basic traffic signal to avoid injuring ourselves and others.

I frequently tell my clients that frustration, disappointment and suffering come when we want things to be other than what they really are.  To want someone to love us who does not.  To want someone to be honest when they are not.  To want the truth from a liar.  To expect republican views from a democrat, or progressive views from a conservative.  To want a racist to be an anti-racist, or someone who is denying reality to see it.  To want people to vote the way we want them to vote, or to raise their kids the way we think they should raise them.  And we want our fellow Americans to act and behave the way we personally think an American should based on our personal interpretation of what an American is and should be.  But of course, the definitions differ widely.  And when reality sinks in and we see the many differences of view, opinion, and belief among us--disappointment comes.  Suffering comes because it's never the way we fully want it to be.

Acceptance is the key, but you might feel disappointed to know that acceptance is not what you expect it to be... either.

Acceptance does not mean we like what we've found.  Or that we agree with what we've found.  It means we've finally admitted to what is present, real, and true.  It's the final stage of the grief process where we reach a place of knowing what the truth is, and once we know what the truth is and can accept it with open eyes and open awareness, then we can finally make decisions about our new direction.

For instance, if you are disappointed because a relative is devoted to a political party that is opposite of the one you are devoted to, rather than wring your hands and fill your mind with hatred, you can instead accept that this reality is true: that you will not get what you want, which is for them to believe otherwise (and most of all to agree with you).  Acceptance does not mean you like it or agree with it, but that you can see it and know it is real and true.  Once you do that then you can make decisions on what direction to take your life in next.  Fighting and demanding that things be other than what they truly are will only lead to suffering

Disappointment comes because things are not going the way we wanted or expected them to go.  Acceptance leads us to healing and letting go, and it frees us from suffering.  It doesn't mean we don't grieve the loss, and it doesn't mean that we had not wished it to be different than it turned out to be.  But with acceptance we free up our energy to be more productive in areas of our lives where we can make a difference.  Trying to change things that can't be changed is only a waste of time and energy.  

We can and do absorb disappointment every single day.  Waking to the reality of these disappointments helps us make decisions about our new direction in life.  How to "move on" as they say.  Being realistic is what helps us have healthy expectations of others and of ourselves.  We can know we are stuck when we are continually trying to make something be other than what it really is, and when we do that, then suffering begins.  When we finally accept things for how they really are, we find our way out of suffering.

Thanks to photographymontreal for the great photo (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/)

Expecting Change: A Way to Reduce Anxiety

In Buddhism there is something called "The Three Marks of Existence".  They are:  Impermanence, Suffering, and Non-Self.  All three are interrelated and are very interesting to study, but for the sake of this blog we will focus on Impermanence. 

Most people around the world right now felt (and are still feeling) the change that COVID-19 caused in our ordinary lives.  The virus was an abrupt interruption to our illusion that whatever it is we are doing, or whatever it is that is happening in our world at any given time, will just keep on going as it is. 

The reality of death and sickness interrupt (or wake) us in this way, and so does aging.  But biologically, and psychologically it seems, we humans can only handle so much change at once before we get overwhelmed and stressed out.  When change comes extremely fast we can suffer shock, such as when we are in a sudden accident or traumatized otherwise.  But other changes, such as the COVID virus, that altered the way we work, function, and live are also things that comparably have a rapid onset and force change faster than can be adjusted or adapted to.

So if you feel like you are just now coming out of a little bit of shock in regards to the sudden demand for change that has been brought on by the COVID virus, and the way it has affected the world and human behavior, you are not alone.  Many of us are beginning to shake our heads and ask..."What in the world just happened?"

But something else that stands out about the COVID situation is the change that has been demanded of us all.  If you were (are) not trying to figure out how to set up a doable ability to work from home, you were (are) at least pushed to do your grocery shopping differently.  From the way we interact, such as greeting one another with foot or elbow bumps instead of handshakes, to the way we line up now to wait our turn to just shop in a store.  Or if your hours were reduced at work, or you were laid off completely, the change is something many cannot escape, and something that has come in abundance.

So the idea behind impermanence as a "mark of existence" is that change is always going to be a part of life.  And we only suffer when we want that fact to be other than what it is.  When we find something we like, we try to grasp onto it and keep it "forever", but no matter how hard we try, it will change.  And when we find something that we dislike, we try to escape it or avoid ever coming nose-to-nose with it again.  But the truth is, we will most likely run into it again someday in a different form--be it pain, illness, financial stress, heartbreak, or any other of the harder events in life.  Our existence has both and they constantly change from one into the other.

So, COVID helps to remind us that nothing lasts forever.  Not good things, and not bad things.  It reminds us that we only suffer when we think it should be otherwise.  When we want (desire) COVID to not exist, to go away faster than it can or will, when our favorite store closes because of the virus, and when we can't do things as we are used to doing them, we only suffer by wanting the whole existence of that reality to be different than what it really is.  COVID is an incredible lesson and reminder that impermanence is indeed a "mark of our existence", and we can have less anxiety and suffer much less when we keep this in mind.