Adjusted Expectations

It is fun to live in the land of pos­i­tive sur­prises. It is mis­er­able to be con­stantly dis­ap­pointed — or to be dis­ap­pointed at all. We all want to feel like good things are hap­pen­ing to us. Is there some way to improve the odds of feel­ing bet­ter instead of worse?

Good news! There is a sim­ple for­mula: adjust your expec­ta­tions. Peo­ple with rigid antic­i­pa­tion par­a­digms go through life pretty glum. They can never get real­ity to match what they think it is sup­posed to be. They are for­ever dis­ap­pointed. The prob­lem does not lie with real­ity. It is deep within their own unques­tioned illusions.

Peo­ple were con­stantly dis­ap­pointed with Jesus. He did not live up to their expec­ta­tions. They wanted a war­rior, but they got a prince of peace. He was such a dis­ap­point­ment to his half-brothers and sis­ters that they con­sid­ered writ­ing him off as insane. Even his mir­a­cles were mis­un­der­stood. He could feed thou­sands, but was not inter­ested in doing any­thing with the crowds other than giv­ing them spir­i­tual instruc­tions and then leav­ing them.

Jesus ques­tioned his fol­low­ers’ expec­ta­tions of every­one from John the Bap­tist to him­self. Gee! They never thought of ques­tion­ing their expec­ta­tions. They were so sure they had the right model that Jesus must surely be wrong — not them!

Of all of the things from which we suf­fer, we suf­fer most from our own illu­sions. Our rigid expec­ta­tions set us up for dis­ap­point­ment. We resort to sheer will to “make” things be the way we thought they should have been. We fail and suf­fer twice — once from the expec­tion and then from the inabil­ity to “cor­rect” it.

Drop your expec­ta­tions of this day and see what God has in store for you. Fifty bucks says he can present a bet­ter sce­nario than what your lit­tle mind can. Turn loose. Relax. Be open to the grand mys­tery. Aban­don the inse­cu­ri­ties that trig­ger your need to con­trol things. Get a life by accept­ing the one you were given.