Release Your Expectations

I now release my expectations of return . . .

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One of my favorite journaling exercises is to work out a conversation with someone in my notebook. I write down what I want to tell them, then write down what I expect their response to be. But, not surprisingly, other people seldom follow my script. This kind of exercise is useful only because it clarifies my thinking and helps me to think of new ways to approach a problem. I try not to get to attached to the outcome, otherwise I'm disappointed when the other party to this fictional conversation doesn't say what I expect them to.

One of the most important things I know is that you can never be sure what is in the mind of another person, even another person you know well. You can only know what they choose to tell you. Thus you can never know how they will respond to something--you can only guess. One of the surest ways to be disappointed is to determine ahead of time what you want someone else to do, how you want them to respond. Most of the time people don't respond exactly the way we would like them to. They're not as enthusiastic, or as sympathetic. They don't immediately offer what we want, or they don't feed back to us the conversation we've been carrying on in our mind all day.

There are only two solutions to the perceived problem of being continually disappointed by other people. One is for the other person to change. The second is to change the way you respond to them. We can continue to be upset with other people's shortcomings, as we see them, or we can change our expectations. As a general rule, we can't change other people, we can only change ourselves.

We all know people whose lives are full of disappointment. They are always unhappy about what other people do or don't do. They spend their lives worrying about what other people think, about what they think about other people. They don't give joyfully, they give in expectation that what they give will be returned to them in kind, or, more likely, they give knowing that their gifts will not be reciprocated. In other words, they expect to be disappointed.

The only way to avoid disappointment is to give without expectation. To write letters because you want to communicate your thoughts to a friend, and not because you expect a similar letter in return. To give gifts because you care for the person you are honoring, not because they should reciprocate. To allow yourself to be surprised by another's response, not disappointed when it isn't the response you had scripted ahead of time.

We need to learn not to put conditions on the gifts we give--the material gifts and the gifts of our time and presence. To give of ourselves with no strings attached. Only when we release our expectations of return can we free ourselves from disappointment and prepare to joyfully receive the gifts that others give us in the same spirit.

We all want our letters to be answered . . .
Try this: answer them yourself before you send them out.
Then, you will not be disappointed. Send unchained mail!
Letters are gifts, not demands.
I now release my expectations of return . . .

~ SARK