Revelations while Standing in my Underwear

So I’m standing in my closet this morning trying to figure out if I want to wear a heather grey camisole or if charcoal grey looks more chic… and a thought be-bopped its way into my brain… No one ever asks to be put on the pedestals that we put them on in life. No one ever asks for us to place our expectations on them and hold them to our standards of how they should be. These are the things I think about standing in my closet, in my underwear, at 6:55 in the morning.

So many times our greatest disappointments come from some of our greatest expectations of people. I know this because I do it. All. The. Time. I hold some of the people in relationships with me to a really high (sometimes unreachable) standard. This morning among my dresses, stilettos and ever-so-comfy hoodies, I realized that it’s a really unfair thing to do… And then I realized I felt like a jerk. After I got over the guilt and shame of being a total jerk-face, I started to really think about my little revelation.

Sometimes the very thing that we expect out of the people in our lives is the very thing that they are not capable of giving. Most of the time it’s not because they don’t want to, it’s because they’re not built that way. See, we as humans deep down love to please others. It’s in our nature. It reminds me of that quote about the fish and tree… “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” We are all wonderfully made (yes, even the person you just thought of and said “Except them.” Even they are wonderfully created) but if we expect of others that which they are not capable of, we are really setting up the people we love and care about the most to fail.

So today I start taking it easy people in my life. I start letting them off the hook a little bit. Not that I don’t hold them to standards of excellence, because we all know that iron sharpens iron. Today I just don’t hold them to my standards and expectations. There is only one standard that we need to follow in this world and that’s God’s standard… If the people in my life that I care about with such intensity and love are living up to the expectations God laid out for us than my expectations really don’t matter anyway.

All of this brings me to the deeper question… Why am I looking to others to fulfill expectations in me, which can really only be filled by the Creator, Himself? Woah. Mind blown. All on a Tuesday morning.

Cheers, Dez

PS… I went with the charcoal camisole. It went way better with my boots!