method man

Grate Expectations [purposeful mispelling] by Jerry Merrill

I understand WHY we have expectations.

They're actually an outcropping of the most basic learning skill. Pavlov referred to it as 'conditioned response.' It's the basic concept that you know causality, and expect the same outcome for the same causality. Pretty basic stuff.

But there are other, far more complex sets of expectations that seem to come from somewhere else- like when the mind and it's logical interpretation of cause and effect in the physical world is injected with a little LSD from our hopes and dreams.

Lately I've been stung a few times by these kinds of expectations. They can simultaneously be the source of great endurance against adversity, and a far too rigid task master that warns of imminent danger where none existed. By expecting too much positive, or by being too gentle in pursuing expectations, we can fight on through a series of events that most in their objective viewpoints would've excised from their lives, until a deep wound is cut. By expecting too much negative, or forming too rigid a set of expectations without flexibility we often discard the very treasures we seek the most.

[companies]
I watched as a group of investors, reeling from the reality of the economic downturn, let an asset worth 60 million dollars erode into a 6 million dollar fire sale. They felt they needed to cut their losses. Their expectations were not met, and as a result they were willing to wash their hands and walk away. I can't tell you how the story ends, but there is technology involved that is cutting edge and years ahead of it's time. It's now changed hands for a fraction of what it cost to create. Someone lost a lot of money. Someone else gained a lot of money. Expectations.

[relationships]
I am being granted an education regarding my own intuition, and how expectations can really screw up relationships that would otherwise be golden. Since this is a 2-part statement, let's talk about one part at a time.

When we meet someone in a general social setting, get to know them, and start dating, it's difficult to form expectations. We see, we feel, we contact, we go. I met someone, and then something got in the way. Years went by with distant contact, and while we were obviously two peas in a pod in many ways, when the time came to try-out the bond we had developed and see how it did on the racetrack, there was a wreck. Why? How could two people so in tune get hung up? There were a few causalities involved, but the biggest one by far was rigid expectations.

Images had developed in both of our minds - images that did not accurately show either of us. I knew this was happening, and had a premonition. I wrote a song about it. Posted a blog about it (November of last year - http://jerrymerrill.blogspot.com/2008/11/pedestal.html) And so what to do when the inevitable time came to re-establish an in-person relationship?

"The deeper in the sand you bury your feet, the easier it is to break you off at the knees." -origin unknown

Of course, there were disappointments - things that I wanted to be true that simply weren't. But the key in all such things is letting go. And when I did, when I could simply admire her for who she was, and not try to fit her into my mold of what I thought she should be, something happened. I began to focus upon amazing qualities about her that I had never thought to include in my expectations. I came away with a wonder for the complexities and beauty of a unique individual that I had already loved from afar - rather than a checklist of ways in which she failed to measure up, which is where I would've been if I had not let go of my expectations.

Sadly, I'm not certain that my fall from her pedestal was quite as gently attenuated. I think my statue lies in broken bits upon the floor. But there is nothing I can do about that. Like false expectations, it's just one more thing to let go.

Expect nothing, and all is a gift.