Chat Meeting Topic:

Expectations

I spent years trying to change someone else and years looking after everyone else but me. Making decisions that were not in my best interest.

I would get myself worked up into a frenzy when things didn't work out exactly like I planned, because I expected the world to work they way I thought it should! Hey, It would be a better place for us all, if it did, right???

I thought it was entirely reasonable that everyone else should already know exactly how I thought it all should be, without me even telling them! I mean, the things that are important to me should automatically be important to everyone else! And the solutions that I thought were perfect for the situation should be the first thing that popped into everybody else's mind.

The consequence of all this stinking thinking was my life becoming unmanageable. I desperately needed a restoration to sanity. Well, my new Al-Anon friends mentioned something about becoming unreasonable without knowing it. Who me?

Slowly I began to recognize the difference between those things that I was doing that were sitting myself up for disappointment, like having unrealistic expectations of others, that were sure to be dashed. At the same time, I never once set myself up for success. Today, at least I know not to set myself up for disaster with unrealistic expectations and I know not to try to change the things that I cannot change.

BuddyT

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