Unexpectedly unexpecting in The eye of every storm

Monday Musings:

The only time in life I get emotionally hurt is when an expectation I had placed, for whatever reason, doesn’t exactly turn out the way it was envisioned. I like to believe I’m a smart man, well-spoken and well-read with a solid intuition and ability to read a room, but life has that special way of taking a detour, making a turn down a road that blended in and went unnoticed while mapping out my plans. Usually, I’m irritated or incredulous towards the option because it was unexpected. The fallacy is not the path itself, but my fixation on the set direction I had in mind when I started. The fallacy is expectation.

I have expectations of myself, and those are the easiest to set in place and blow down like so many card houses. Staunchly I believe something was going to turn out my way, whether it’s been a job, my marriage, my health, or my relationships. Recently, and it sounds dumb, I’ve realized the world doesn’t give two shits about my expectations. First, they’re not real. They’re projections, hazy visions of a future not grounded in reality. Second, they’re placing me in an extremely vulnerable position, and while vulnerability can be great, as I’ve previously said, self-vulnerability is a freeway to a dead end. Through expectation, I’ve come to accept no one knows how to manipulate and twist my good intentions into a tangled mess of confusion better than my own grandiose plans.

I am also trying to demolish my expectations in others. I haven’t been paid since March 20, my long-term disability denied by Lincoln financial. Now that it’s approved, I have an expectation this morning that the back pay is going to hit my bank account any second. I know it is not, as they didn’t push the deposit out until Friday, yet every hour, on the hour, I sit obsessively checking my account. What purpose is this obsession serving? None, save an hourly let down. Yet that’s the expectation I have of a financial system bending to my will, and it’s not going to happen in my desired time frame.

I’ve found expectations in others only leads to mutual destruction. I cannot force my wife to take me back, bells and whistles, with a parade down Main Street in tow. Yet, that’s what I want so badly I’d move mountains to achieve it. My expectation in that process is that she doesn’t have her own set of things to work through. Selfishly, my mind manipulates me into thinking, “Jon, you’re fixed! It’s a miracle, now everyone will love you again!” The reality is she is hurt, mentally and physically, and needs space to walk her own path now.

It’s so ridiculous writing that sentence down. It’s even more ridiculous reading it out loud. I have no control over other people’s emotions, or feelings, yet I struggle with letting that go, knowing it’s a hindrance to my growth. Desperately, I cling to it like a climber on a cliff, stuck thousands of feet against a rock face with no clear path forward. The path forward exists but the climber cannot see the big picture of the mountain. I need to let go of that rock and trust the ropes I’ve placed to do their job and keep me safe. Once I kick off that cliff, swing backwards and away, the big picture focuses, and I’ll see it’s not the fault of the mountain, but my position on it’s crags.

Letting go of expectation is the hardest and goes against every inner instinct we possess. Why? Fear. Fear drives nearly every decision we make. Yet if we as mankind didn’t shelve fear, we’d never have gone to gather food, create airplanes, sailed across the ocean, or learned- well, anything.

Today I’m going to try my best, letting go of that cliff, trusting the safety mechanisms I have placed instead of doggedly persuing the path I believe is the only way to the summit. I will consciously try to nix my expectations immediately, not allowing them to take hold or drive my decisions.

It’s easier said than done. Or is it? Thats just an expectation.