Disappointment & Expectation

Most of the time, I don’t get what I want. I expect to get it, for whatever reasons that I have created in my mind to a point that I believe that I deserve it. And when I don’t get what I expect, I usually allow myself to be disappointed and sometimes get angry with whoever I think have a part to play in hindering me from getting what I really want.

Now, I don’t think I am the only human being on earth who constantly becomes disappointed whenever I don’t get what I expect. I am pretty sure most humans are like me. I guess it is only natural for us to feel disappointed. Disappointment and expectations are like the 2 faces of a coin, when one is up, the other is definitely down. They are correlated, interdependent with each other. When our expectation is high, we get disappointed too easily.

Throughout my coming to 34 years of living on this earth, I have had many, many disappointments – uncountable it seems to me. In my younger days, there were times when I lost hope of ever getting up. I cried openly and discreetly. I wished I could change something so that I’d get what I want. But, in most cases, I couldn’t point a finger at the exact cause. It was like getting one big slap after another, falling constantly and moving an inch seemed to be like eternity. It was times like these when I felt Allah’s true love. Love so disguised that we, with our human minds, thought that it is pain. But it is actually not pain - it is love.

I realised that to be constantly disappointed is a precious lesson from the Creator who loves us so much. When there is no one that we can turn to, we turn to HIM. We speak to HIM. We seek HIS help.

I also learnt that I am the cause of all the disappointments. I let myself be disappointed by having expectations on others whose actions are beyond my control. They are outside my circle of influence. And I learnt that I have to accept the fact that whatever I do may or may not influence whatever their actions. It is always and forever be a 50-50 chance.

This is not to say that we should stop having high expectations. In fact we should aim high - not for others but for ourselves, how we can improve ourselves and how we can be a better person tomorrow and the day after.

Expectations on others, if any, should be kept to the minimal. Be in our husbands, our wives, our children and even our friends or co-workers. We cannot expect them to do this, that and whatever for us. We should not expect gifts, hugs, promotions, salary increments or even to be treated well by others - although we may strongly believe that we really deserved it.

The only gift that is certain is what we give ourselves - the gift of not allowing ourselves to be disappointed by the action of others. If Allah whispers in their hearts to do all those mentioned above, if Allah wills, then Alhamdullilah. If not, then be it. Because the higher our expectations on others, the greater our disappointment will be.

But even if we do and say, we could not resist having high expectations on others, then we should just accept that things may not turn out as we expect them to be.