Ex-pec-ta-tion
:a belief that something will happen or is likely to happen
We
develop expectations one of two ways: 1. how things have happened in the past
or 2. how we would behave. This the usual scaffolding humans do as they
navigate through life. They use the knowledge gained in the past to
inform the present.
For
example, as a child we were told, “don’t touch the stove, it’s hot”, for some that
was enough. We developed an expectation that the stove was hot because
clearly someone in the past had discovered it was hot. For others we
still had to wander near the stove and feel the heat radiating from it.
Then, of course, there are those of us who had to touch the hot stove because
we had to learn first hand. Regardless, we developed a future expectation
based on past experience.
In the
event we have no past experiences to inform us, we usually think, “how would I
respond”. This may be the most dangerous expectation. We are all
unique, wonderful individuals and comparing or expecting another to behave as
you would is asking them to be you. It removes a little bit of their
individuality and it doesn’t make you as open to learning the person in front
of you.
However,
when expectations are communicated and allowed to be fluid we truly begin to
learn. As humans we cannot help but to heave expectations. It is
our way of preparing ourselves for what lies ahead. So we should all
expect expectations, we should never expect someone to have the same
expectations as us. We should instead encounter each person (even the
ones we have known for a LONG time) as a individual to be learned. We
should expect to learn their expectations and to share ours.
