Expectations

According to dictionary.com, to expect = To consider reasonable or due, To consider obligatory

I almost blew my top yesterday when I realised a certain task assigned to someone wasn't properly carried out. It wasn't something difficult... The message has been conveyed more than once. XYZ claimed he knew what to do. And then ... I almost fainted when things turned out otherwise. After kindly highlighting to XYZ what he should have done... he wanted to rectify matters. And BANG! Another error. Sigh!! Man, what is wrong with him.....? I was in a state of shock because this was something I definately did not expect out of this guy given his background & status. I guess... titles do have an impact on forming our preconceptions about people.

There is also an informal meaning to expect apparently. To presume or suppose.

Is that the reason why our expectations of others causes frustration for them and us?

XYZ was rather pissed off by me. To him, it was not a life and death issue but something in the grey. But to me, it was something that was considered reasonable & due. I expected him to know what to do. I placed a box bigger than him on him.

I realised .... one's standards are not another's. Just because you come from the same background does not necessary mean that person is on the same page as the rest of us. I ought to have given him some more grace, even though I knew things could have done in a better way.

There's a saying that goes "No expectations, no dissapointments". To a certain extent, this statement is true. When we put our preconceived ideas on others and expect that to fill that "box", we need to factor in the possibility that they won't or can't.

Then again, all of us will never grow then. Forever we'll be stuck in our little box, thinking that we have arrived when very often, the actual fact is --- we haven't.