Unrealized expectations

Of all the things that contribute to unhappiness, I think that unrealized expectations may top the list.

Most of us enter a situation or a relationship with a certain set of expectations. We ought to know better as we get older, but we keep surprising ourselves by harboring what may turn out to be unreasonable and, thus, unrealized expectations.

The first real fight my wife and I had after the wedding was over breakfast. Not “over breakfast” as we were eating but over how we (more specifically, I) would receive that meal. My mother always cooked breakfast. There was never a day in my early growing-up life, except when she had surgery, that my mother didn’t cook breakfast. Naturally, I expected my new wife to cook whatever I wanted for breakfast and what I wanted was eggs, bacon, homemade biscuits, and gravy; the Southern kind of white gravy, also called “milk gravy,” not that brown foreign stuff. It was the first unrealized expectation of my marriage.

When I entered the ministry, I believed that all Christians were selfless, loving, giving, tolerant, hospitable people who would do whatever was required to grow in the faith and share that faith with others. While there were people just like that, often as not, people in those small, early church assignments were just as likely to be self-centered, stingy, bigoted, intolerant, hateful people who didn’t like change, didn’t want to be bothered, and didn’t visibly live out the faith they professed. If these people were elected to the church board, and they often were because they were so vocal and visible, life for a young, inexperienced pastor and his wife would become a living ecclesiastical hell. After a little over four years, I quit the pastoral ministry, believing that all the rancor, dissension, tension and stress was somehow my fault. I took a position as a social worker with the state working in Child Protective Services where, in dealing with abusive and neglectful parents, I was cussed at, punched at, spit at, stabbed at, and shot at — which prepared me to later go back into the ministry and deal with church business meetings.

The one time I didn’t have unreasonable expectations was when I went to Kenya and Uganda for three weeks in 1998. We were to arrive in Africa just days after Osama bin Laden’s henchmen had allegedly blown up the U.S. Embassy in Kenya, killing hundreds. We were landing in a foreign land with no protection from the embassy available. The embassy in Uganda was closed as well due to terrorist threats. I remember clearly not knowing what to expect. Would the people be friendly or hostile? I didn’t know. Would we be safe or in danger? I didn’t know. Would my MasterCard work in Africa? Could I find a Diet Coke anywhere? Would this be one of the best experiences of my life or one of the worst? I just didn’t know. I had no expectations. It was, as it turns out, one of the best experiences of my life. The people were very friendly and, yes, we were in a potentially dangerous, even deadly situation. But my MasterCard did work and I found cold Diet Cokes when I really needed them.

A few days ago, unrealized expectations nearly wrecked a few days away with my wife. We traveled to an island off the coast of Georgia where I imagined that our hotel staff would carry our bags, parking would be convenient, nice eating places would be within a stone’s throw and, most importantly, we would be on the beach. In my defense, I didn’t pick the hotel. She was attending a meeting that is important to her profession and the choice of hotel was not ours.

The first two hours, I was — how should I nicely put this — not a pleasant person to be around. We had to park a distance from our room, lug the suitcases across hot asphalt, look in the local magazine for a place to eat since all the restaurants were far from the hotel, and the beach was miles away. I was expecting warm ocean breezes with sea gulls. What I got was stagnant, humid air, mosquitoes, and gnats. I was used to Internet access in my hotel rooms. Nope, ya gotta use the business center where you pay for access. I was expecting free local phone calls but they cost 75 cents each.

Then my wife reminded me that I have always said, “There are no coincidences in God.” Which meant, of course, that God knew there was no free phone, no free Internet access, no gulls, no close restaurants, no convenient parking, no helpful bellhop, no warm breezes, and no beach, yet He still permitted us to come on the trip. Unrealized expectations had ruined the first two hours of my stay and it was totally my fault. So I decided to pretend that I was in Africa and that the next couple of days would be an adventure. And it worked. We found a great place to eat, discovered turtles in the little lake close to our room, took a drive to explore our corner of the island, and I took a deep breath, chilled out and enjoyed the short stay.

I think the secret is to live in the moment and take life as it comes, determined to enjoy that moment to the full without the distraction of expectations. And, anyway, if I want breakfast, I still cook it myself.