Recipe for massive failure: have higher expectations for others than you do yourself.  I don’t remember where I saw this one but I think this is an important reminder for everyone in this day and age.  Our society lends itself toward martyrdom and victimhood, thinking that everything is an attack up to and including expressing our beliefs.  We somehow feel we are authorities on everything, like our opinions and feelings matter more than the facts.  Anyone who reads my work knows that I value opinion and feeling but I look at them as tools.  I’ve spent nearly 4 decades dealing with the fallout of letting feelings, feelings about emotion, and opinion run my life and I can speak from experience that this is a surefire way to be disappointed by people.  When we look to be hurt, we will be hurt because we allow ourselves to feel we are hurt no matter what happens.  It isn’t up to people to live up to our expectations because we have an opinion on how people should live.  If I feel like someone should behave a certain way, if I expect them to react how I do, then I’m set up for disappointment from the start.

I won’t, for a single second, say that humans are rational creatures but I know they are capable of rationality, perhaps even up to a near Vulcan level where emotion plays no part.  But I also know that we worry about everything, we try to plan ahead, we try to know the answers to everything so we don’t get hurt.  Life doesn’t work like that and we can’t control what others do.  I’ve been on the receiving end of irrational reactions to the point where a single difference of opinion led to the end of a friendship in spite of years of openness, kindness, and generosity.  I’ve actually done the same thing because I expected more out of someone and when they showed signs of behavior that I didn’t like or behavior that reminded me too much of what had hurt me before, I didn’t hesitate to cut them out.  Some of those bridges I honestly had no issue putting the match to.  Some of them I realize I could have handled the situation better. After time, I see the only thing I could have controlled in any circumstance was and is myself.

And that my friends is the entire point.  Our job isn’t to dictate what people do.  I believe there are certain matters of behavior and decorum that should go unspoken, things we should all practice as common courtesies and kindness.  I’m human and I still react in those moments someone isn’t following those beliefs.  But I am at the point where I fully understand I have no control over what other people do.  We have the choice to address it, ignore it, adapt to it, learn from it, or walk away from it.  As I think about it, I believe that is truly the point of differences.  We are meant to shape each other.  Think of the rocks we polish by putting in a tumbler: they beat against each other until the edges are worn enough they don’t hurt each other anymore.  We tend to be abrasive with each other when we have a difference in thought. The skill I’m focusing on honing and what to share with others is managing the emotions we have, managing the thoughts we have, and focusing on controlling what we can.  To do that we need to understand the difference between what is in our scope and what isn’t.  That can be a fine line at times but we must never cross it without permission and understanding on both sides.  If we want to live in disappointment, believe that we have control over how people think and feel and how they treat us.  If we want to learn to navigate life with less armor but more skill, we need to manage our own thoughts and feelings.  Self-control and understanding can never steer us wrong.