Group expectations....!

Great Expectations.... a book to be looked at perhaps and considered. Did not the main heroic character NOT have many expectations? Did not those who had expectations suffer? As a group (even a small diad) did not all end well?

The word expectation implies a demand that one has of reality and reality has a way of doing its own things.

Hope and yearnings are better in that the person who hopes or yearns has a measure of control over what is hoped for or yearned for.

Hopes are more internal than expectations. I can hope that someone will love me. I cannot expect that they will love me. I can hope to be taken care of but I cannot EXPECT that. Perhaps someone SHOULD take care of me and/or love me but I like what Dr. Albert Ellis says: " They (the human race) believe they must do well; that other people must treat them kindly, nobly and do their bidding; andthat conditions must be absolutely just so - or else they become horribly depressed. It's deadly for people to feel that they MUST have these things.These things are contrary to the facts of life. They are preferences. I'mchanging people's musts into preferences."

I would prefer that such and such were the case. I may feel?, hope?, expect?, that something WILL ABSOLUTELY BE... that it MUST be so.... - but all one can do is express ones preferences.

YES? or NO?? - what is most true?

Expectations are shared with others in a way where one need to get something from the other and if something is not procured than there is guilt!

Hopes are personal and may require someone to do something but the other is free to do or not do and not guilt is implied nor incurred.

GUILT and BLAME and miscommunications and unmet actions are painful TO ALL! Suffering is so very likely when we go beyond our hopes and dreams and instead find ourselves amongst unmet expectations and despair.

Self-sufficiency is important. Personal independence is important. A community of help and support is what civilization is mostly about as we get old and unable to be fully independent. AND in any case at all times humans need other humans to provide all with food, shelter, and clothing. We are barely ever self-sufficient and therefore barely ever really independent and really free. Choices are made. Others are chosen or we have children (of whom we have expectations and/or hopes). It takes a village, nation, planet.....

IT takes more than ourselves and it takes more than just any one other. Spouses support one another but in some cases both grow old and ill and neither can care for the other. In other cases one may be very ill and another may be so well and active as to not want to be trapped into being a full-time caregiver. OOYY!!!!