I wonder...

I wonder if we can really control our expectation or not.

People say "Lower your expectation" as if you can do that with proper training. I always seem to pay more attention to the degree of my expectation after the fact. What I want is unexpectation, and do you know what I just found out? It's not even a word! Well, that was unexpected.

I wonder why certain foods make great combinations. Like apples and peanut butter. Yummy.

Great Stuff!

When we expect things from ourselves, other people or life in general we are placing conditions on them. It's like saying, "I will not accept myself, you or anything else unless things happen the way I want them to happen." That would be a rational attitude if people were omnipotent. We of course are not omnipotent so having expectations will literally drive us crazy!

If we expect things from people we are loving them with conditions.
If we expect things from ourselves we are loving ourselves with conditions.

To love unconditionally and live rationally in reality we must have no expectations.
It's all about acceptance which is all about love.

People set expectations because if we had no expectations of ourselves, we would never make progress or strive to do the best we could. I know a potential counterargument to this is that perfectionism is just as bad as having no goals. So I would prefer to avoid those two extremes of having too high of expectations versus having no expectations.

I think there are reasonable and unreasonable expectations to set for others. We dislike having unreasonable ones placed upon us - during which we feel as though we have to meet a certain condition in order to obtain love. This is on par with emotional blackmail - and I don't believe this is healthy for relationships. No one, especially not a child, should ever feel as though they have to bend over backwards and shoulder a ton of responsibilities in order to gain love and appreciation.

But I think as humans, we still do expect certain things from others: we expect people to treat us with respect, we expect people to not cross our boundaries without permission, we expect to be treated as an equal human being regardless of our origin/background, we expect not to be lied to or cheated on.

I agree that it is very hard to love unconditionally. But I'm not sure if that is really an attainable objective. Are we really okay with being subjected to anything and everything, yet still offering love? Just look at divorce rates...

I know my perspective is kind of bleak. I would love for the world to be an endless pool of unconditional love, but the reality of the matter is, it's just not feasible. Not with all of the potential ways people can harm us (whether intentional or unintentional).

@Indefatigable and connect.the.stars

Thanks both for expanding my wondering in so many words. They are of great help to me where my vocabrary is so restricted. Speaking of love and myself, I just do love/hate willingly or unwillingly, no control there at all. Feels like I'm not doing anything,,yet.

I set certain conditions on myself and I have to do trials to strive forward, how selfish/selfless I can be in that process? Is it ever be alright to hurt someone with your intensions and wrong expectations? How do I know that something's unattainable unless I try everything out? Obviously, these are rhetorical questions, I just had to let em out.

Sometimes inaction speaks to me, and actions speak for itself. I have lived decades and I'm like a newborn, not knowing anything and so immature. (Please don't press 'Hugs' for this, I'm really doing fine.) I just didn't know that there are so many sucking up to do just to live, haha.

I want to have more 'been there done that' for myself, and maybe I revisit some of those moments to learn more. I wonder where I'm gonna go from here, all I know is that I'm on the right path, I have to believe this undifined/undefinable(?) fibre of my being and press on. (Please someone tell me what I'm doing? nah, I'm just kidding.)

Someday, I want scream "Far Out!" beyond any of my expectation.

Hi connect.the.stars
Thanks for continuing the subject!
I have a few more thoughts...

We can make and work on goals without expectations.
We can desire things to happen without expectations.
We can believe or hope things will happen without expectations.

We can only expect things to happen in accordance with the laws of nature.
We can only expect ourselves to think and act according to our own nature.
We can only expect others to think and act according to their nature.

Any other expectation is irrational.

That being said, I do not expect anyone to understand this.
I share my thoughts for the purpose of helping others, but I do not expect them to help anybody.
I give freely out of love and expect nothing in return.

I accept everybody as they are, but that does not mean I trust them or desire to associate with them.

That is my nature.

Thank you for clarifying your point of view. I think I see the difference now and if that's the way you define expectation (not hope and not goals), then yes I can fully understand how one can not set expectations when it comes to acceptance and love.

I think that I do the same as you then. I definitely don't expect people to listen to me or change what they're doing for my sake. I accept them as they are and expect no more.

You are right there is a difference between hope and expectation. Hope is something you wish for the future but you're not expecting it to happen. I had mixed those up because I had been comparing the two feelings of crushed hope and crushed expectations (they feel similar to me).

I am thankful for the discussion on our wonderings (which is not a word I guess but it works). T u all for sharing your thoughts.
=====

Agape (unconditional) love is a wonderful topic for thought.

I wonder how I can be the same person and be really liked in some settings and really disliked in others.

I wonder how I'll ever get back to living a normal life. Whatever normal means...

Thank You connect.the.stars
You helped me see things more clearly too!

Thank You Everybody for being who You are

Thanks for saying that!! I wish my T could see your post.

Indefatigable, you, especially above two lines really helped me help myself, so thank you. Now I have my own clarity on this subject, and this taught me a great lesson that I always have a choice.

I think I'll try to control my expectations to better myself from now on. Controlling when and where to apply it and maybe even how much seems possible now. And if I find myself asking questions like "What did I expect form this? or What can I expect from this my own action I'm about to take?", I'll know that I'm focusing on the wrong things. It's a mere tool to reflect yourself or prepare yourself for the possible future, and I shouldn't be expecting too much on the role of our expectations. I am free from expectations if I so choose.

Indefatigable, I really want you to know that a great advice has been taken from your post.

or "I don't expect you to understand this, but..."

ahhhhh! Why does people say that? What does it mean? Well, I don't expect me to understand this, not tonight anyways.

Normal means Whatever (you want it to be). Do a little adjustment and get back to it. Get it closer to you.

My view on normal as of late. It is sooo underrated, I underappreciated it. I even hated it before. I never saw myself as normal and after trying to do some seemingly normal stuff, there's quite an art to it, but doable if I wanted to try. Normal is subjective and objective at the same time, is it not? I'm not understanding how it's even possible that two people can talk with that word without either one asking "what's normal?". You can throw it outta window and have a *fill your favorite adjective here* life. I don't know what I'm talking about, just wanted to cheer you up.

For me, this doesn't happen. Winston in my current book for example, he doesn't have a face. I know where he's from, how old he is and maybe I'm not remembering all of his physical features, but he's still pretty much a faceless figure. I understand your wondering, do you think any style of writings can meet the condition that you set for that hypothetical situation? A really restrictive poems, perhaps?

Another example. "What's Up" by 4 NON BLONDES

I stumbled across to a music video of this on youtube this morning. It's a quite simple song linguistically, yet all I remembered from the lyric is this line "What's going on?" I'm pretty sure I first heard it on radio somewhere, good old days and my knowledge of English was close to nil at that point. What are you gonna do then? You start simple and you only hear simple words like what. The funny thing is that I couldn't remember the phrase in any form till this morning when I really needed to hear.

It came after the song Irony by Alanis Morissette, it was on the auto playlist. I was feeling down last night and lucky me, I found myself finding a real ironic moment before bed. So the next morning, I had to follow it up and for the first time, I understood the lyrics of the tune that I was already familiar with. I heard it couple of times this morning and, it was an epiphany moment. What a beautiful song it is. I was listening to the song and understanding for the first time under the bright sun, and the realization that what I really needed to hear from anyone or anywhere was this simple words "What's going on?". People forget things, intensionally or unintensionally. I do. Did I bury the phrase along with my past before? Or maybe the fact that I don't have anyone in my life is the cause of this. I can only speculate. But anyhow, the impact/meaning of the word was huge. I felt it with my heart and mind, even at every extremities of my body.

What I'm trying to say by this example is that any creation holds this innate universal messages that transcends everything, whether you're black, white, brown, yellow or purple, whether you're tall/short fat/skinny rich/poor, and people will interpret the message by their own. Only when you try to make the book real, they get ruined.

Katniss? Oh yes. Other than that, Harry, Hermione and Bella. The images can get the hell out of my head but they won't. If I go back to the books, those images(human faces) would melt away because the universal message would be speaking to me.

Although, I guess this is the same for most people, some brains are wired differently. You might've heard about those people who sees colors with sounds or maybe it was the other way round. Some rare wiring of brain may require you to connect a character in a book to a face, and other stuff you mentioned.

This is all I have to say, since I'm from different background than you, thought you might be interested to know. Love this thread of yours! (small apologies for this mess..)

I wonder how many U.S. citizens know the difference between a democracy and a republic?

I wonder if I make a difference in someone's day
Does anyone think of me or am i invisible?
Just my ponderings..

I wonder if females or males have a harder life?
I wonder if that changes with age?
I wonder about the factors that play into your answer to this post?
I wonder what reason(s) you gave for saying girls have it harder?
I wonder what reason(s) you gave for saying boys have it harder?

I wonder where we are going as a society and how long the U.S.A. will be around?

We started out as a Republic and we used the law, we need authority to move things and we (as a society) are using our freedoms in dastardly ways, killing officers for example, which makes NO sense. It makes me wonder.....
I wonder if people understand what they are ultimately doing with their heinous actions?
I wonder if they want anarchy which is designed to change the power in a country?
I wonder if they understanding the people that typically start the Anarchy are usually the ones that can stop it and establish a new government?
I wonder if they see the big picture?
I wonder if disrespect for police authority will get them what they want?
I wonder if it will be too late to stop their bolder from rolling down hill?

When thinking of psychopathy or antisocial personality disorder it is amazing being in a room with somebody like this. People have described it as being "without a conscience."
I wonder:
How accurate that is?
What they have done to be able to make the decisions they have and will make?
How do they appear to detach from emotion when doing the heinous crimes?
Do they know what they are doing is wrong?
Do they know their social behavior breaks social mores?
Do they enjoy what they do?
Can we have somebody break down the specifics that feed into all of this?
Do they ever, at any point, feel bad, guilty, shame, etc, ever?

i wonder how long this thread is going to keep bumping it's awesome

I wonder what Wonder Woman wonders?

I wonder why the chicken did cross the road?
Did anyone ever find out?

I wonder why men are allergic to putting the toilet seat down?
Is it really that hard?

I wonder who came up with the idea of a bidet?
Had they not invented toilet paper yet?

I wonder who decided there would be 24 hours in a day?
And I wonder who on earth came up with the idea of daylight saving - I mean seriously - how does it "save" light?

I appreciate u posting that Hooli! Ty