Gift #27: Drop the Expectations

Have you ever been disappointed that someone let you down? That they didn't meet your expectations for something and the fall out hurt you? This happens to me more often than it should. In the last 10 years I have felt hurt frequently by friends, family, and even my husband because at some point they didn't meet an expectation I had for them. They didn't reciprocate friendship in the way I had wanted. They didn't communicate in the way I expected.

My gift to myself is to drop the expectations I have of others. This allows others to live freely, to be themselves. And it creates a deeper level of happiness for myself. Instead of entering a friendship, or conversing with my family with a preconceived idea of what I should be receiving, I am going to let those people be and act how they choose and appreciate what they give to our friendship. I think this is a basic and first act of love I can give myself and those around me.

“When you stop expecting people to be perfect, you can like them for who they are.”
― Donald Miller, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years: What I Learned While Editing My Life 

“When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist