I had an interesting conversation with a friend last night. I told about her some frustration I had been experiencing with disappointment in my life. Lately, it seemed that everywhere I turned I was met with disappointment, right at the points where I thought I had been working up to something good. I was feeling it more so in relationships than in other areas of my life at the moment. I felt like a perpetual new kid everywhere I sought to settle in - not the cool new kid that everyone is immediately enamored with, but the awkward wallflower making every effort to grow into something more. It's a terrible feeling really, and I feel pretty embarrassed about the fact that I have that feeling or that it bothers me so much, but I am only human.
My friend has a habit of encouraging me to look inward when I share these kinds of things with her. It is not a bad practice, and I like to think that I tend to do it on my own, but it is good to examine myself from a perspective other than my own. So we thought about why it is that I was experiencing my disappointment. She determined that my standards were exceptionally high and that likewise, my expectations might be too high. This was not the first time I had heard such a thought, and to be honest, the very idea has always bothered me. My expectations were too high? What kind of hippie-dippie baloney was that?
But what if there was really something to it? What if the reason that I always felt so let down was that my expectations were in fact too high?
I thought about the different areas of my life where my expectations might have left me wanting. There was work for starters. I failed to meet my own expectations in that the job I have is not the one that I want, which was a subset of a larger disappointment - my eternally unfinished business with school. Work also came with the disappointment of my employees - I could not think of one day where my entire staff had met all of my expectations. It left me incredibly stressed.
Next, I considered relationships. I thought about the few longtime friendships that I had somewhat managed to sustain, and how I might be failing them by my own standard and admission. How is that I can never find time to write to the one friend sweet enough to write to me? Could I not have managed to make it out to the one event my out-of-town friend had invited me to in his neck of the woods? On the other hand, how often were they checking up on me, or coming down to visit me? I want us all to do better, but I figure that should start with me.
Then there are the relationships that were new to me. I was making all kinds of efforts to invest in those - showing up whenever I could, and opening my door time and time again. After countless declined invitations, part of me really wants to throw in the towel. Heck - part of me wonders if I should because that seems like the most self-respecting thing to do. The other part of me longs for the kind of community that I feel like only I can initiate, which might mean trying over and over again. Truth be told, it is exhausting.
Of course there were the really personal areas of my life from the inside out - my sense of purpose and fulfillment, my spiritual growth, my body image and health - we're not diving into that, but you can imagine (and if you can't let's talk, because I want to know your secrets).
I gave thought to my expectations in all of these areas and I knew that they were in fact very high. I thought about the origin of my expectations and naturally, my first thought was childhood. I was raised with high standards, and I know that they played a role in making me who I am. Some people looked at my upbringing growing up, and they thought that my parents gave me impossible standards. There are things that I might change about my childhood or do differently in parenting my own children, but I would not do away with those standards.
That being said, there is an important distinction between standards and expectations. For the life of me I couldn't quite figure out the nuance on my own so I searched google and youtube to see what other smart people thought about it, and found a unifying theme to be that standards are internal, grounded in reality, and based on input, whereas expectations are external, not always grounded in reality, and based on outcome.
So then, in the case of relationships, for example, my standards as a good friend require me to prioritize time with my friends with some level of frequency, to consider their needs without prompting, and to seek out opportunities to share experiences with them. These are the criteria I impose for myself, they are entirely doable in reality, even when they might be challenging, and they are based on what I put into our relationship. I have control over whether I do these things or how well I do them. Unfortunately, if I have the slightest inclination to impose the reciprocation of these criteria, I have moved from standards to expectations, and the (proven) likelihood is that I will be let down.
Do I lower my standards or my expectations? Neither? Both?
I will keep my standards - they are designed to bring out the best in me. That being said, there is a sort of balancing act that is required. The trick is to be sure that the standard is accompanied by grace. Grace looks like loving myself when I fail to meet the standard.
As for my expectations, I wonder what it would look like for me to let go of them. If I no longer hold any expectation for the people or things that I let into my life, how can I be sure that those things are best for me? There are a few facets to the answer to that question.
To begin with, I need to do a better job of discerning and filtering the people and things that I let into my life, by seeking out those with standards that match my own. The trouble with that is that it can be hard to determine that right away. By the time you've invested enough in a relationship or an endeavor to know whether or not your standards match, isn't it a bit too late to back out? The cure for that dilemma might also be grace - grace to continue loving them when they fail to measure up to your standard.
I need to find it in me to apply this kind of grace outside of personal relationships into work relationships and less frequent interactions. I have to figure out what that looks like because sometimes imposing a standard is part of my job or other interactions.
Another facet to consider is that maybe your relationship is not about you. Maybe you were placed in someone's life to be able to build into them, and not to receive anything from them at all. It seems like kind of an unfortunate thought. Who has time to just pour into others? The answer: Jesus. *Mic Drop.*
Again, we must consider discernment. I need to understand the standards of the people and things that I invest in and be sure that I balance their place and their measure in my life. It is wonderful to pour into other people who may not share my standards, but I will also need to surround myself with people who share my standards and will pour into me.
I need to step back and examine myself always - Am I upholding my own standards? This, of course, expands beyond relationships into scarily personal territory. Am I upholding my standards for my mind, body, and soul? If I'm being honest, the answer to that is not always the resounding "yes" that I would like for it to be. How do I counter my expectations for myself? Ready to have your mind blown? The answer once again is grace. It comes with an understanding that there is only one being who will never let me down and that being is not even myself. It's God. I know (and, even so, I constantly have to remind myself) that even if He hasn't met my standard or my expectations, He has not failed me. My standards and my expectations are not perfect, but God's are, and only He can uphold those at all times.
When I started to think about this and write this post, I did not expect to end up here at this conclusion - my expectations are too high. The Bible tells us time and time again not to put our faith in men, or even ourselves. To have expectations is to do exactly that. I need to replace my expectations with a whole lot of grace and place all of my faith in God alone.