June 30, 2022

Reflection

UNMET  EXPECTATIONS

What happens to us when our expectations are not met?

Do we become better?

I am tempted to make the question a bit different: Do we become bitter or better?

But I better not make the challenge of unmet expectations too big.

Just avoiding bitterness is enough for starters - and in time hopefully we can become better.

One of the first learnings I've had about expectations  is to make distinctions.

Are the unmet expectations I have - of myself or of others?

Are there unmet expectations about me from others?

For example, I would like sermons to be shorter.

For example, I would like so and so to pause after each line when we pray the Biblical psalms out loud and with each other.

For example, I'd would like so and so to be ready to leave when we go out to dinner on Saturday  evening. We said we'd leave at 7 P.M. didn't we?

Unmet expectations can impact us. They  can make us bitter, cynical, pessimistic.

They can also make us better - when we are stretched and we grow in patience and in the understanding of others.

But they can also - especially when that to deal with ourselves - lower our expectations - and we begin to settle for less, Our potential fades. Our gifts  remain in a bottom drawer. We are headed for an earlier grave.

Unmet expectations?

As is said of a lot of people, "She [or he] had a lot of potential."