You can only accept what people can give.
It's human nature to believe that we can expect things from people. It's just in our blood to think that the people who are supposed to love us, unconditionally will. Our parents are supposed to be proud of us and accept us for who we are. Our friends are supposed to be there for us when life gets challenging. People are supposed to be good to other people because that's the right thing to do. Unfortunately, holding expectations for people will never prove reliable in the end. We will be disappointed numerous times by the people we love and we will be dumbfounded when we realize that there is nothing we can do to change it.
Rather than looking at the negative of this idea, I like to focus on the positive part. When you don't have expectations for people, you learn to accept the things that they are capable of giving. When you find that this fact is true, you will come across a type of nirvana. Think about why we stress about things. We stress over anything that has high stakes or crazy expectations.
When entering my freshman year of college, I felt this piece of advice was the greatest of anything I have ever been told before. I had to remind myself that I shouldn't expect anything from anyone, and just see what is being offered. I didn't expect my new friends to be there for me like my home friends, and I didn't expect to make friends right away. I also didn't expect my home friends to call or text me everyday. I wasn't expecting to be home sick, and I wasn't expecting to have an amazing first semester experience. I was just seeing how things would go, feeling things out and I would soon see what life would present me because that's all I can expect at the end of the day. I can predict that nothing is set in stone and I was going to have to get cozy with that fact.
Fast forward to second semester of my freshman year, I have come to find incredible friends who exceed any expectations I could have imagined. I have loved school more than I could have ever anticipated, and I believe it is all due to my mindset coming in. When you go through life counting on people and believing things will happen, there is too much room for a let down. If you are open minded and have your guard down, you are able to learn more and you allow yourself to live and make mistakes. That is what I have discovered over the past 18 years.
No matter how disconcerting the idea is to grasp in the beginning, if you just accept and don't expect, you will be a lot happier at the end of the day.
