As epiphanies go it wasn’t very impressive; no lighting bolt, no clap of thunder, no parting of the clouds to the accompaniment of angels singing Hallelujah, just the simple realization during a routine walk to the subway that all the emotional pain, all the stress, all the disappointment, and much of the anger, I’ve ever experienced in my life is a direct result of the clash between my expectations and what is actually rendered unto me either as a result of my own labor or action or as a result of the action or, quite often, the inaction of others.
Society is, in fact, built on expectations.
- There is the expectation that members of a society will follow agreed upon laws for the good of the whole even if it means inconvenience to the individual.
- There is the expectation that members of a society will abide by prevailing moral and behavioral norms, or if they don’t at least do no harm to others in the violation of those norms (after all, what someone does in the privacy of their own home with like consenting adults is really their business for the most part).
- There is the expectation that if you work hard you’ll be rewarded.
Increasingly, however, I find that these expectations have become invalid. So-called “common courtesy” doesn’t appear to exist any more, “quality of life” laws – small things like actually stopping at traffic lights or, perhaps, not trying to kill the pedestrians – have fallen by the wayside in Americans’ incessant naval gazing. Working hard, seemingly, gets you no where as those who kiss ass and “know the right people in the right places” at all levels of society reap the benefits while others sweat and toil and play by the rules. And while these things are particularly annoying, they are less scary to me than a trend I’ve noticed in my personal life.
I find that even in my most intimate relationships I expect things which I believe to be reasonable but which I am consistently denied or rebuked for having expected. What then are my options? To expect nothing? To expect to be disregarded? To ask for exactly what I want but not be surprised when I don’t get it?
It really boils down to the two basic ways in which life can be lived: the reductionist method or the expansionist method.
Reductionism works on a theory of diminishing risk. Make yourself small, think things through and try to look at all the angles before making a request. Request only those things that you can not live without (the logic being if you ask for three small things you’re more likely to get them than if you ask for five or six or ten medium sized, or even big, things). Reductionism is about diminishing your exposure to pain. Expansionism is quite the opposite.
Expansionism works on a theory of big risk for the possibility of a big return. Ask for exactly what you want, be bold about it, if denied and you think there’s room press for what you want again because you just might get it.
In many ways, expansionism and reductionism are equally cynical: one tells you to expect nothing thereby opening the door for you to ask for everything while the other tells you to expect to get fucked over so why bother wanting anything anyway.
Neither one seems workable to me (truth be told, I’m a living example of reductionism) but I’ll be god damned if I can think of a third alternative.
Perhaps the problem is that you polarize the two options?
When it comes to interpersonal relationships neither model is particularly healthy. Being reductionist suggests a total subversion of your own needs and personality. Being expansionist suggests a total subversion of your partner’s needs and personality.
Though I hate to use such a cold analogy, relationships are an economical process. You have something to offer, and so does your partner. You agree that the trade is fair, and you go about bartering your emotions, and eventually the actions between.
If your trade isn’t working you need to reexamine what’s being given and what’s not.
Asking to have your needs met, if they’re reasonable, is hardly the same as demanding gratification — and you seem to equate natural, reasonable needs in a relationship with base selfishness.
If a partner leads you to believe your needs are ridiculous, or you can’t trust them to even SUGGEST what your needs might be then I think you’re obviously not in a good relationship.
Either with your partner, or with yourself.
PS. The root of all evil is lack of attachment.
See Without Conscience, High Risk, etc.
Though I do agree a great deal of dysfunctionality can stem from expectation. Especially genderal/sexual expectation. See God’s Phallus.
Mwah. 😉
Well, Buddhism tells us that the root of all suffering *is* attachment (desiring) so I guess it all depends on where you’re standing when you look.
I think what really concerned me most, which I was fairly in articulate about after being awake for 23+ hours, is that disappointment I have in not getting my expectations of the larger whole met is bleeding over into my personal relationships. I would hope that people who love me, or purport to anyway, would treat me better than random strangers.
And it should be fairly obvious that I don’t have a particularly good relationship with myself. Some of that is my fault; some of that is biology about which I can do nothing and must simply learn to overcome.
Lots of thoughts here! First off, you (Woodstock) are using the word attachment very differently from L – at least if I get what L is saying. Attachment in L’s use refers to the connection between an infant and at least one of its caregivers. That attachment seems to be an essential part of our human configuration, and in its absence, behavior seems far less than human – even evil. From the inside, I think the absence of this attachment is the ground of great suffering, and often, numbness. I suspect it is also the ground for seeking for all satisfaction from outside.
The attachment Buddhism speaks of is that desire for objects (including people as objects) that drives a lot of what we do, and at the most profound level actually forms the world we see. The main point, for this discussion, is that the whole analysis presumes a fairly normal functioning human being.
(Perhaps you are both clear on that and I’m flogging a dead horse here – in that case, sorry.)
As for expectations – the root of evils? – a very good point. My own view is that the essential thing is to recognize your own worth and the rest be damned. And you mention that this is an issue for you. (How does biology play into this, by the way?)
From the Buddhist point of view (at least for some schools of Buddhism) our essential nature is enlightenment, Buddha mind, etc. When a person can connect with that, it is very grounding. My teacher used to say that we all long for good things, sometimes of the simplest and most mundane sort, because in some part of our minds we recognize that in our own essential goodness, we deserve them. Not of course that that means we’ll get them. But learning what it means that we deserve them is important. This is the basis of the third alternative.
I need to remember to not to reply to Woodstock in e-mail so the rest of the conversation shows, hehe.
Yeah, I tried to clarify that for her. And yes, that is the sense I mean attachment. But somewhat less specific than developmental attachment.
I think the real difference was how we were using the world evil, rather than the word attachment.