MANAGING MY EXPECTATIONS

Yesterday, a friend recommended the movie Julie and Julia to me. The movie was a delight. One of the leads is a blogger and her life gets a new meaning when she starts writing her blog. Taking inspiration from the character, I decided to be consistent with writing my blog. 

Coming to the topic of this blog, I am sharing my thoughts on how to manage one’s expectations from self and others. I will be sharing my experiences as an example.

The Thinker, a statue at Musée Rodin  in Paris

The first and most difficult part to managing expectations is, understanding yourself. I often wonder how humans have developed technology to reach the far ends of our Solar system but haven't fully understood yet, how their own body works. I don’t believe there are people in this world who have fully figured themselves. So, it would be wise to move to the next part and come back to this one again later.

Probably I will never fully understand myself, but I think I am closer to the reality than I was few years ago. I believe that this period of lock down has given many of us the time to introspect. The continued restrictions on many activities are additional time for the same. Over these months I have realized the importance of meditation and prayer. It has helped me to understand my limitations and the power of faith in others.

The second part is to understand others. Others includes people and all the living and non-living things in your surroundings. It is important to be aware of and develop interest in your natural environment, but because human is a social animal; I will be focusing on how to understand fellow humans.

 Empathy is a word that’s become very popular recently. It sounds alien but it simply means the ability to understand and share the feelings of another. There could be many means to achieve that. But I think I can achieve that through meaningful conversations with people. Having meaningful conversations with people is not as easy as it sounds. People are busy with their responsibilities and fulfilling their goals and you mostly have small talk with them, which I have recently realized is also important. Please read this article to understand the importance of small talk. 

https://www.vox.com/2015/7/7/8903123/small-talk

Out of curiosity to understand others, I developed a hobby of watching interviews and listening to podcasts. The beauty of podcasts is that I can listen to them while commuting for work, while cooking and while doing so many other activities. I am always on the lookout for interesting interviews. Due to the popularity of film stars and their exposure, I started with watching their interviews on YouTube. But I eventually came across interviews of many different people on YouTube and various Podcast apps. I also developed a hobby of reading up about famous people. After watching a movie or TV series I immediately check the Wikipedia page about it and the people involved in it. I enjoy understanding the actor behind the character.  

So, here is what I realized. The woman/ man behind the extrovert characters in movies are oftentimes introverts. The protagonists of most commercial movies share one character trait, they are all extroverts. It is also important to understand that there are no true introverts or extroverts. People lie somewhere in between these two extremes.

It is very important for these actors to understand their characters and differentiate themselves from them. For that, they introspect and develop empathy. Externally, the world of movies looks very glamorous and chaotic. But it requires a certain amount of discipline for a movie to be completed.

The next part is to list your expectations and understand how to deal with them. I have expectations from myself and people around me. It is most disappointing when you do not fulfill your own expectations. Therefore, it is very important how you deal with this disappointment. I am a very critical person so initially I would just keep focusing on my problems and not on a solution.

The epiphany of my extremely critical nature was what helped me to finally move on to being solution oriented. I am in the process of learning how to be solution oriented. Also, until you find a solution, it is helpful to think about your privilege in each situation. My Idealist nature meant that I would try to think of better alternatives to what I had, rather than thinking about how I could make the best use of what I had. I believe I missed out on a lot of things due to that.

The final part is to evaluate your expectations. You ask yourself if you should be having certain expectations. If you decide that you should then you must decide who do you expect these things from. You might realize that there are a few things that you have been expecting from others, but really you should be expecting them only from yourself. And there are a few things that you have every right to expect from others, but you do not decide who you expect them from. Let people surprise you.