Word of Wisdom: Expectations

“When one's expectations are reduced to zero, one really appreciates everything one has.” Stephen Hawking

Recently I was talking with a friend going through a lot of transition, and the conversation took an interesting turn as we discussed how the weekend had gone.

He said, somewhat lightheartedly, that things went sideways when a scheduled delivery didn’t happen, preventing him from working on a project he had carved out all of Saturday to complete. “My expectations for the day were dashed,” he told me, to which he responded with self-described “pouting” and “wasting away” in front of a video game console.

It led to an enlightening exploration of deeper, more significant unfulfilled expectations than a delayed widget.

And we all have them. And we suffer because of them.

A quick search of “unmet expectations” turns up the usual >100,000,000 results in .57 seconds, with links containing words like “pain”, “disappointment”, “danger”, “victim”, “serial killer of relationships”…as well as what seems to be an entire subgenre of romance novels.

Expectations of the unmet sort seem to be closely associated with a whole host of negative outcomes. Indeed, they are perhaps the cause. “Expectation is the root of all heartache,” opined William Shakespeare (or William Fakespeare, as it turns out).

But why? Is not “expectation” simply a necessary aspect of planning and future-orientation?

Let’s dig into the word itself.

Our English word expectation is derived from the Latin expectationem, meaning “anticipation” or “an awaiting”. So far, not so awful. Anticipation seems largely good, and “an awaiting” has an almost theological ring to it. Is that not the essence of hope?

The noun form, however, has its origin in the verb to expect, with a literal meaning of “thoroughly” (ex-) “to look” (spectare, from which we get “inspect” and “spectacle”, among others).

Again, nothing here that screams “danger” or “serial killer” of relationships and joy. So why all the bad press?

I’m discovering the answer lies in form, not substance. In other words, in the journey from verb to adjective to noun might lie the difference between hope and despair.

While much of life is anticipatory, when we form an expectation, we now possess a noun, a thing, an intangible artifact we have fashioned by gazing into the fantasy of the future, whether tomorrow or ten years from now. It is an object we have fabricated in isolation, one that will be used, one way or another: either to display, to control, to wield, to obsess over…or be dashed to pieces. It is a possession, and we humans tend to hoard and guard closely our possessions.

And be let down by them.

Whether they are of our spouse, our children, our parents, our employees, our friends, our God…our expectations—our possessed, imagined, scripted, and tightly controlled behaviors and performances of any other living being—will not emerge into the concreteness of reality as we planned.

Even if we die a thousand deaths desperately trying to make it so.

Yet there is a pathway forward.

Because we are “human beings, not human doings”, as the saying goes, to be expectant is indeed a fundamental aspect of being human. But, importantly, to experience expectancy is a matter of being, not having; one of posture, not possession.

To be expectant, rather than to have expectations, is to act as a steward of experiences, not an owner of outcomes. To be one who is present and responds to what is, not one stuck in what is wished for, but is not.

It is to live in the flexibility of sonship, not the rigidity of servitude. To lead in the redemptive responsiveness of a good Father, not the irascible inflexibility of a tyrant.

It is to face unforeseen twists with eyes looking with hope to the Immortal One, and to respond to wrong steps and missteps with restoration.

It is to walk in what is true—what is—and to love and empower those around us as they actually are, not as we wish them to be. To accept ourselves as we are, not as we wish (or pretend) to be.

And in so doing, to find the lightness of joy that our heavy collection of engineered expectations has never allowed us to experience.

Regardless of whether or not the widget arrives on time.

“Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.” Matthew 24:44