Category: Ponderings

For a very long time, I hated being alone. I could not stand my own company for the most part, because it came with a host of emotions and turmoil and chaotic thoughts. Writing and reading and drawing were sometimes distraction enough to get through it, or served as outlets. But eventually, I would fall into that internal pit of despair.

Things have changed. I now crave my own company, a chance to sit in the quiet and simply exist; process things without expectations from other people. To think, and to imagine and create things that truly inspire me.

Expectations truly are one of the worst things about existence. We all have expectations of other people, and I believe I’ve written about this before – no one in the world has any obligation to fulfill the expectations you have of them. The only person you can truly expect something of is yourself. The rare exception to that is parents. Parents have an obligation, by virtue of bringing another living being into the world, to provide for that being and teach them how to provide for themselves.

In my mind, I hear, “Well, what about making a promise? That creates an obligation, doesn’t it?” Yes, technically, it does. But it’s different – it has the qualities of an agreement. When you are a parent, you have this obligation, but it wasn’t an agreement of any kind. You simply did what you did, and now are responsible for this life, this being that you helped to create. That life literally didn’t exist before you made a choice that resulted in its creation, and it had no input into that decision.

In everyday life, people make and break promises all the time, and there are other expectations that come into play. You make a promise, generally with an expectation of your own of some kind, and that complicates things. In a parent/child relationship, no such complication exists. You created this life, and because of that, have an obligation to it. I don’t think people become parents with an expectation of what kind of person that child will be. Hopes maybe, but that hope comes (or should come) with the understanding that your actions as a parent will shape what kind of person your child becomes.

Now, I could very well be wrong about all of this. I have only ever had experience with one side of that relationship – I am not a parent. But I have observed this relationship in different forms throughout my life, and for the most part, what I’ve said seems to be true.

All this to say that expectations set us up to be disappointed in most cases. Even if someone does what you expect, if it’s not done how you expect, that could let you down just as much. I want to be able to truly have no expectations of anyone but myself, but I’m unsure how to accomplish that goal. Expectations, or the formation of them, seem to be ingrained in our minds, so finding and altering the root of that may prove difficult. Not to mention the fact that expectations are most certainly entangled in our emotions, which makes removing them a monumental task.