Borrowed one part of the title of the book that sparked this thought – ‘Surely you’re joking, Mr.Feynman!’ Towards the middle of the book, Feynman talks about the time he got incredulous job offers and wondered how he could ever meet the expectations. A colleague explained to him how he (Feynman) was doing a good job of teaching, and any other expectation that the university would have of him was subject to luck. They might get it out of him or not, and they were ok with the risk. Freed Feynman from guilt, and gave me a thought on expectations.
If I plot a me/others and meet/don’t meet 2×2 matrix, I get 4 boxes. Let’s take the easy ones first. I meet expectations, and so do others, life is awesome. I don’t meet expectations, others don’t, I think that would follow a natural progression of drifting apart. More on that in a bit.
Now to the more interesting boxes. I don’t meet expectations, others do. They probably won’t hang around me a lot. Knowing me, that’s either by (my) design, or my lack of external self awareness (great read, and I’m now working on it!).
And finally the last box – I meet expectations, and others don’t.
This is the one that interests me most. As I wrote in The intrigues of my empathy, in a lot of relationships, I begin with a trust that both parties will meet expectations. In relationships I value, when that trust gets broken, I have operated in two ways. Earlier, I used to just walk away. That’s still my relationship with social platforms, and why I merely broadcast, and don’t converse. But in ‘real’ life, these days, I try to communicate – both my expectations, and what can be expected of me. The latter, because it is possible I am the only one thinking I’m meeting expectations. It’s work in progress – I have been getting the ‘why, what’ right, but my ‘how’ is horrible! Many a time, it unfortunately ends up signaling zero empathy and defeating the whole purpose. Ugh. The number of attempts depend on the value I place in that relationship. If it still doesn’t work out, I stop meeting expectations, and we go into the earlier box of both parties not meeting expectations.
As life progresses, I think my relationship with the world at large (acquaintances, most relatives) is one of neither party meeting expectations. I rarely conform to societal playbooks, and I don’t expect the world to understand. My efforts are usually to avoid points of potential friction. Scathing sarcasm and a gruff exterior do the trick. A terrifyingly small set of people (close friends, relatives who have become friends, and thankfully a lot of colleagues now) are in the ‘both parties meet expectations’ box, and I will go well out of my way to keep that intact.
And all of this is why, when the world tells me about ‘expectations’, in my mind I’m saying, “Surely you’re joking!”
P.S. I read this, and wondered if it sounded smug. That is not the intent. The personal posts are usually intended to give structure to vague thoughts, and to help me understand myself. Explanations, not justifications. 🙂
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