My impositions may be the reason for my unhappiness.

“Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.” – Charlotte Bronte.

Now:

Expectations: that’s a good place to start. We are always somewhat victims to our inflexible expectations. We want something and we want it when we want it. We impose our wants and hopes and feelings of expectancy on people and we tell them how we hold them in high regard. How we somehow assume the right to impose such a burden on another human being I know not. We expect certain standards like we deserve it and we tell ourselves that it’s because we know the other person can handle it. I think it’s a burden. You don’t know for certain that someone can fulfill your expectations of them. We were born into our lives and all of it we have someone imposing something on us. It’s like….do we even get to not care for it…I mean.. My mum expects me to pass while I expect her to pay my fees….what happens if we let each other be??... Everyone would walk around with sad countenances and we would be disappointed in ourselves. While I believe that expectations are useful for civilization and while I will still impose upon the people I love the weight of the things I expect for and from them I wonder if it’s truly altruistic (bear in mind that I don’t believe in true altruism). Do I expect something from someone because I feel like they are capable and it would make them happier or purely for my own gain?...I sometimes wonder if  the weights of my expectations are crushing someone else. Does it hurt for them to look at themselves from my perspective? Sometimes some people can’t just do it!...they can’t live the way you want them to, they can’t feel what you want them to. You need to lower your expectations and accept that they can’t do it. You need to let them know that it is okay if they can’t reach as far as you want them to be. Of what good is their anguish to you when they feel like failures and they cannot accomplish what you expected? It is a different case when they share your aspirations and they want the same thing for themselves. A mother expects a child to walk btw 8mnths of age and 18months. They do it simply because its natural and  it is not unreasonable: but to expect a child to fly even when you can’t do it yourself  and justifying that by saying you want them to do something you can’t achieve is simply being unreasonable. Sensitivity is key in these things. I will try not to expect something I cannot achieve of someone else except they assure me that they think they can. I can encourage you to want better…but I will not be disappointed if you are satisfied with whom, how and where you are. People would call it mediocrity.. I call it knowing your limit and being comfortable with it. If you want more…achieve more. If you don’t and you’re happy and content, who am I to want more for you? Who am I to say that you should want more..Who am I to impose my expectations on you? I am quite ready to accept that not everyone can be great. I’m not saying don’t try,..im just saying don’t make other people try if they won’t be happy doing it. Not everyone can be great. The song “I wish we all could win” makes me think that if we were all winners, there would be no concept of failure. One has to be for the other to exist. There can be no good if there isn’t bad. You don’t want to be disappointed,…wear the other person’s shoes, see what the weight of your expectancy does to him/her…judge it as if you were him/her. See what he/she sees. Be them. Be flexible. Don’t hurt yourself and hurt others in the process. Stop setting yourself and others up for disappointment.

“The wise man, knowing how to enjoy achieved results without having constantly to replace them with others, finds in them an attachment to life in the hour of difficulty. But the man, who has always pinned all his hopes on the future and lived with his eyes fixed upon it, has nothing in the past as a comfort against the present's afflictions, for the past was nothing to him but a series of hastily experienced stages. What blinded him to himself was his expectation always to find further on the happiness he had so far missed. Now he is stopped in his tracks; from now on nothing remains behind or ahead of him to fix his gaze upon. “- Emile Durkheim