SISTER WISDOM : build a better life

"You said you would call."

"You're late."

"You forgot again."

"I just want a nice quiet dinner out with you. Is that too much to ask?"

"You paid how much?"

If only you would listen more, visit sooner, take out the trash, remember my birthday, make more money, quit working on the weekends, get home on time, buy me something nice, play with the kids, talk to me, pick up your clothes, call more often...

The list never ends. Come on. You know you have one: that list, that mental checklist of what makes a great husband, kid, friend, mother... fill in the blank. You have one for yourself and you feel guilty when you don't live up to it. You have one for all the people around you, too, some more complicated and specific than others. Ladies, the list you have for your husband is probably a document vying with White House legal memorandums in length, specificity, and total lack of intelligibility - to your husband. To you, it's perfectly understandable, isn't it? "It's not that complicated... all he has to do is just be here for me a little more, talk to me, be romantic, maybe bring me flowers every once in a while... that's not so much. It wouldn't hurt if he would start working out again, too, and spend more time with the kids. And he could get that raise if he really pushed for it, and then we could have a nice vacation..."

When is the list ever completely fulfilled? Maybe you don't know its length and complexity as well as you think you do. The list, you see, changes, grows, morphs with each action or non-action. There is no end. It is, like the grave and the fire, never satisfied. It is you, and it is based on your expectations of who and what someone should be.

Everyone has expectations. True. We've all grown so accustomed to them we overlook their affect. They are deadly little beasts, sucking the life and joy out of every relationship into which they creep. They remove our ability to be surprised, delighted, and content. Contentment receives what comes - what happens - what other do or say - with an attitude of humility and disregard for self. Contentment does not mean "not wanting." It is not the absence of any desire. Contentment means, no matter what the desire, there is an attitude of acceptance. I will take what is given even if it is not what I desired.

Expectations are based on pride. I know what should happen. My way is the best. My plan is better. You should do what I want. When people fail to meet our expectations, we get angry because they have not recognized and submitted to our superior plans for them. Obviously if they really understood the situation... if they really got it... they would see things our way. Right?