The Problem with Expectations
- Mar 17
- 3 min read
Most disappointment isn’t caused by what happened. It’s caused by what didn’t happen—the version of events we expected, but never actually agreed to.
Somewhere in my early thirties, I made a quiet decision. I gave up expectations.
Not because I had read a book or attended a workshop. Not because I had a grand theory about human behavior.
But because I kept noticing something. People were getting frustrated. Disappointed. Angry, even. And when you peeled it back, the root was often the same: An expectation… that had never been spoken.
Unstated. Unexamined. Unshared.
And yet—real enough to cause real emotion when it wasn’t met.
The Hidden Contract - It shows up everywhere.
At work: “I assumed they would loop me in.”
At home: “I thought you would remember.”
In relationships: “I expected this would go differently.”
But here’s the thing—if it was never said, was it ever truly agreed to? Or was it a private contract, written silently, and then enforced publicly? That realization stayed with me.
The Decision - So, in my early thirties, I tried something different. I stopped having expectations.
Not in a cynical, “expect nothing” kind of way. Not in a withdrawn or disengaged way. But in a more intentional, spacious way. I began replacing expectations with something else:
Hope
Desire
Anticipation
Appreciation
Belief
Each of these has a different quality. They are open. They allow for movement. They leave room for reality to meet you halfway.
Expectations Have Hard Edges - Expectations, I realized, are rigid. They come with sharp lines:
Yes or no
Met or unmet
Success or failure
They create a binary world. And because they are so clearly defined… they are also confined. They limit what might be possible. If this exact thing does not happen, in this exact way—then the experience is labeled a disappointment. Full stop.
What Opened Up Instead - When I let go of expectations, something unexpected happened. I became more curious. More present. Less attached to a single outcome. And—perhaps most importantly—less likely to hold others accountable for rules they never knew existed.
It didn’t mean I stopped caring. If anything, I became more engaged. But the engagement shifted.
From: “Did this meet my expectation?”
To: “What is here? What might be possible from this?”
A Different Kind of Accountability - Now, that doesn’t mean we abandon clarity.
There are moments—especially in work—where agreements matter. Where roles, deliverables, and timelines should be explicit. But those are not silent expectations. Those are shared agreements. And there’s a world of difference between the two.
A Quiet Experiment - For over 30 years now, I’ve lived this way. No expectations. Only intentions. Preferences. Hopes. And a willingness to meet reality as it arrives.
An Invitation - You don’t have to give up expectations entirely. But you might begin to notice them. Especially the unspoken ones. The ones quietly shaping your reactions. The ones creating disappointment where there was never a shared understanding. And you might ask yourself: Is this an expectation… or is it something else?
Because sometimes, what we call expectation is simply a hope that was never voiced.
Expectations draw hard lines. But life rarely stays within them. And when we soften those edges, even just a little, we may find something we didn’t expect at all—
More space. More possibility. And far less disappointment.
