sick of it Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 This is my attempt in my transformation from being one of the helped, to being a helper. Hope: n. A wish or desire accompanied by confident expectation of its fulfillment. Expectation: n. The act of considering likely or certain, the probable occurrence or appearance of. These two words, though similar, are different and are mostly responsible for keeping us in the plateau part of a breakup. When we hope for something, we picture a realistic dream. We hope to get the promotion, we hope to get him/her back, we hope to get into the college we applied to. We don’t wish for these things. Why? Because these hopes are realistic, they are plausible. You have done work towards the goal of these hopes, but in the end, we don’t have control of the outcome. We do what we CAN, and leave the outcome to the “fates.” When we have an expectation, we take hope to the next level. An expectation is deciding that our hope or wish will come true. It’s not a matter of if it will happen, but when. It’s much more factual than hope. We expect our friends and family to be alive today, we expect that the person who loves us will love us tomorrow, we expect the check we deposited to be in the bank. They are things which we rely on. We do our part and anticipate the outcome. Where am I going with this? Unlike memories, thoughts, anger, and other emotions in which time MUST be allowed to heal us, hope and expectation are something we can attempt to turn off. Neither of these are good for us to hold on to. Expectation makes you stand still…hope makes you afraid to move forward. They both keep us hostage. When we hope for a second chance or hope that they will call, or hope that they will realize what they did, we wait. Hope makes us wait because it’s a realistic dream in our heads. “we had them before, we can have them again.” Therefore, we are afraid to move forward in the fear that the hope becomes reality. Think about it. How many are you are afraid to move forward with your life because you're afraid of how the ex will react if they decided they made a mistake and want you back? With expectation, we aren’t afraid to move forward, but we WANT to stand still. It’s a refusal to believe or accept something. Denial is a result of expectation. We expect them t come back, that’s why we don’t believe its over, we believe that they’re a good person and deny that sometimes they’re just playing games so we refuse to get angry. We expect OR hope that their actions have meaning. “Why did they email me? Why did they drive by? Why did they say that? They called last week, they’ll call again” Half of these hopes and expectations vanish with no contact. We have nothing to hope for or expect. Nothing can be misinterpreted if there’s nothing to misinterpret. What about in a relationship. Hope and expectation can cause just as much damage to your emotional state. If you keep hoping for something and it never happens, how do you feel? If you expect something, and you don’t get it, how do you feel? In a relationship, if you give too much and expect too much you're crushed when it doesn’t happen. The point of all of this is to let hope and expectation go. Hope and expectation keep you bound to something. It keeps you attached because you either anticipate or dream of a result, an ending, or an action to be taken. Expectation is easier to rid than hope. It’s ok to hope. It’s not ok to live by it. It’s not ok for hope to govern the way you live, think, or act. Hoping must be a backburner thought kept with the attitude, “if it happens, it happens”.
Chinook Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 I have always said that 'hope' and living with it for a particular outcome is destructive and it is. It's okay to 'hope' for yourself... but placing hope and expectation on someone else for a particular outcome, will always devastate you. I have never come across any situation where it didn't. Good post.
CaliGuy Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 Great post. Sums everything up nicely. I have the expectation I'll meet someone I'll fall in love with. Not hope. And reason why is I've set myself up for it. If I had sat around hoping for it to happen I wouldn't have improved as a person. Thanks.
openskies Posted April 18, 2006 Posted April 18, 2006 Nice piece sick of it, and I think I would take it a step further CaliGuy... and not expect anything. I am saying this, and at the same time I have a hard time truly living by it. Nonetheless, if we could truly act without expectation, just be ourselves, no possible outcome would have an impact on our state of happiness. As I've mentioned before in another post, these are very Taoist thoughts, and although I myself am agnostic, I find wisdom in these observations. Funny thing when you read these, you realize that psychologically and socially we are more or less the same as we were over 2400 years ago. Proof that it's hard to cope, to do NC, to be true to oneself, etc... Some quotes that I find relevant to the discussions in these forums: #9 "Do your work, then step back. The only path to serenity." #10 "having without possessing, acting with no expectations, leading and not trying to control: this is the supreme virtue." #15 "Do you have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear? Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?" #20 "Stop thinking, and end your problems." If anyone would want to read further, these are taken from the following translation http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taote-v3.html OS
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