April 23, is generally regarded as Shakespeare’s most likely birthday, so it would be appropriate to begin with one of his quotations.

“Expectation is the root of all heartache.”

Some think he never said that, since scholars can’t find it in his plays, but that doesn’t matter if the plays were all written by Edward de Vere anyway. Who knows?

The complement to this is the title of the Dickens novel, Great Expectations. As I’ve written before, if something is true, I believe its complement is also true. I love paradoxes. As a retired teacher, I know the power of expectations in a classroom, where behavior and learning are so certainly a function of expectations. A teacher who expects little from his students will most certainly get it. It seems to me that in professional relationships, like those in teaching, which over time become personal, great expectations matter. That may be largely due to an unspoken statement akin to, “I have great confidence in you. You can do this difficult thing.”

Great expectations on a personal level, however, may be sure to bring disappointment. Wives and husbands could keep counselors employed for generations on this source of difficulty, never mind issues of debt, affairs, or addictions. I wonder how many times such sessions began with “I thought he was…” or “She should ….”, “Why doesn’t he …” or “If only she would ….” This doesn’t mean married people should have no expectations of each other. Common courtesy, loyalty, a willingness to help, a willingness to listen, a place of emotional safety, and shared long-term goals are things that matter. No marriage should be in trouble, though, because of the replacement of toilet paper, the position of a toilet seat, or a woman’s underthings drying on any available horizontal pole or doorknob. (I’m not saying my wife does this, mind you.)

Expectations are an intensity multiplier. Take the Super Bowl, for example. It’s still fun for me to watch a championship game played at the highest level, even if I’m not a fan of either team. I will always favor one side a little, but if my team loses, I’m not going to go out into the streets to overturn cars, set trash cans on fire, or break windows. If my team wins, I’m not going to go out into the streets to overturn cars, etc. If I really am a fan (short for “fanatic”) of a team, I may experience highs and lows that come from each individual play and range from extreme anger (that ref called WHAT?) to extreme elation, (Take THAT, in your face, you jerk!) Such extremes may be tolerable, perhaps even preferable for those who enjoy a sport, one of our substitutes for outright war, but I don’t recommend it as a way to live one’s life.

In the 60’s we youth (yes, there was such a time) used to tell each other, “Peace and love,” which kids of the 80’s turned into “Peace out.” It was the primary way many of us fought the Viet Nam war. There is something to be said for that attitude. Emotional highs and lows are not nearly as healthy as a whole series of little highs. If you don’t expect your wife to fill up the car with gas, but she does, what a nice present that is. If a husband isn’t expected to clean the bathroom, but he does, what a nice present that is. The point is that expectations always carry judgment, and it’s so much healthier to simply observe what is, rather than judge what ought to be but is not.

This is one of the primary ways in which a person lives a life in peace. Because I cannot control other people, games, the weather (ah yes, the weather lately), the timeliness of other people’s arrival, traffic, the news, politics, where birds deposit excretions, which direction the wind is blowing, or what someone just said to me, the solution is not rage, disappointment in expectations, or depression. To misquote Shakespeare or Edward de Vere, “All the world’s a TV show.” If you don’t like what you see, don’t throw the candy dish at the screen or yell at your kids, change the channel. Observe with interest, and if you don’t like what you see, look at something else. You have the TV clicker for your life. It’s in your pocket right now. Peace out, everyone.