7 minute read
By Bethany Rees

One of my absolute favorite TV shows is The Office. And that Michael Scott, he is just hilarious! While his emotional intelligence is pretty much non-existent, he can turn any situation into a hilarious one. He always had such high expectations for…let’s just say the perfect experience with everything and everyone. His day in the wilderness to grow in leadership was going to be AMAZING, until he almost ate poisonous mushrooms. The movie he wrote was going to project him into the Hollywood spotlight, until it didn’t.  Each girlfriend he had was “the one,” until she wasn’t. And every party he threw was going to be the best ever, until no one showed up. 

Oh poor Michael Scott, he always had high high hopes that led him to always crashing and burning into a huge pity party for himself. 

And you know “there ain’t no party like a pity party because the self-indulgence don’t stop.” 

Ok, maybe that’s not the way that little “party” song diddy goes, but man oh man are we a little bit like Michael Scott, in that we love a good pity party.  And generally speaking, at our really good pity parties, we always get to play the role of the victim to someone else’s evil plot to make us look or feel bad. 

Every pity party we have comes with a roller coaster too…a roller coaster of thoughts that ride down the spiraling tracks from negativity to hurt to despair. And that thought coaster loops over and down again and again. So much so, that we typically refuse to “snap out of it” until we are affirmed and validated by some sort of outside force. 

While I am not a psychologist, I do have a theory about why we, and Michael Scott, have these pity parties. My theory is that we are great storytellers mixed in with a little bit of being a control freak. For most events, experiences, and relationships, we build an amazing story of everything that is supposed to happen…everything according to us and the story we wrote in our heads that is. We are very detailed in our script of who is supposed to do what, and how we are going to feel as a result. We build up such great expectations, and then anticipation, for our story to come true that we crash and burn emotionally and mentally when the experience doesn’t play out the way we wrote it in our heads. 

Let me explain using the extended metaphor of the roller coaster:

I am convinced that most of life has us riding the same roller coaster of unmet expectations over and over again. Here’s the emotional coaster we tend to ride with unmet expectations: 

• We strap in with great excitement of an experience to come. 
• We start picturing the details of the ride, what is going to happen, and the feelings we’ll have along the way. 
• Our expectations for the outcome of this experience has our hopes sky high…”it’s going to be amazing!,” “this is going to be the best experience ever!” 
• Then comes the great climb up the hill which has us filled with downright giddy anticipation.
• Next comes all the twists, turns, and flips we weren’t expecting. Our heart starts to pound, our stomach starts to turn, and we develop great anxiety. So much so we are overcome with regret for choosing to get on the ride. 
• As we get to the point where we can’t take it anymore, the ride comes to an end, and we sit stunned in the roller coaster seat. 
• We feel taken advantage of because the experience was NOT what we expected. The things we thought were going to happen, didn’t happen at all or didn’t happen the way we thought they would. 
• We feel like a victim and develop pity for ourselves. 
• We are unable to let go of our white-knuckled grip and frozen scared face. We can’t move on because we keep replaying the experience in our heads over and over again. With every replay it causes us more hurt and anger from our unmet expectations. 
• It takes an outside force, like the roller coaster operator, to snap us back to reality, and tell us to get out of the seat and to move on.

So we get off the roller coaster feeling betrayed that the ride didn’t bring us everything we expected of it. We vow to never ride again so we storm out…only to see another roller coaster that captures our attention just a few feet away. It has a different title, theme, and promise to provide. So we decide that it will be much better than the last roller coaster. (The “grass is always greener” mentality going on here.) 

We get onboard the new roller coaster, while also building up another set of expectations for this one. And then we start the scene all over again: from storytelling to setting expectations, from anticipation to anxiety, and from regret to self-pity. 

Up and down we go with our emotions of unmet expectations. 

While again, I’m not a psychologist I have not only experienced this, but have watched countless people stay on this ride for years. See if any of these real life examples resonate with you: 

• You are hosting a family holiday celebration. You can picture your perfectly cleaned house, the perfect table settings, and the perfect meal. You believe everyone coming over will gush over how well you have planned and prepared the holiday meal and fun activities for afterward. Everyone will have a great time and leave so grateful for your hospitality. 
• In reality, some people don’t show up last minute. Others don’t notice any of the decor or details you’ve worked on.  One family member decides to bring all their emotional baggage to share, which causes a family fight. In the end, everyone grits their teeth and bears each other long enough to get through dinner. As soon as dinner is over everyone leaves to go their separate ways. You are left feeling angry at your family for ruining what could have been a great time and you vow to never host again. 
• You love this “widget” (widget is a generic term to describe the unknown so in this since it could be a car, house, vacation, or whatever applies to your situation, etc). You’ve always wanted this widget and dreamed of how you would feel once you got this widget. Finally, you spend the money to buy one and you are over the moon…for like one month. 
• In reality,  you start making payments on the widget and caring for the widget. The excitement fades and yet you are stuck caring for something that takes a lot of your money, time, and attention. You become overwhelmed and develop buyer’s remorse for having bought the widget in the first place. You would like to sell this widget but you’re upside financially and can’t even afford to sell it. 
• You start a new job and you are so excited to be “moving on up” in this world. You tell everyone about your new “perfect job.” You dream of earning accolades for your work and hosting happy hours with your new work besties.  
• In reality, you are overwhelmed, out of your league, struggling to keep up, and having conflict with your co-workers. You feel betrayed by the hiring manager who talked about how awesome this job would be. You are ready to quit even though it’s only been a few months so you start looking for a new job.
• Dating your future spouse was fun and romantic. You painted a beautiful picture of what marriage was going to look like (cue: romance, having a cutely decorated house, and having the “perfect” little children). You just knew your spouse was going to continue romancing you as well as actively listening to and caring about every little stress you experienced. 
• In reality, you set all these expectations up for how your spouse was going to engage with you daily (and you didn’t share your “expectations” with him/her). When all those storylines you created in your head don’t play out the way you thought they would, you start becoming short with your spouse. You are getting mad, giving him/her the silent treatment, and crying in private because your spouse isn’t who you thought he/she was. You then become jealous of the other amazing relationships that others have.  

The problem in all of these scenarios is that we build up expectations that these things, events, experiences, and relationships exist to serve us and produce a specific feeling in us (affirmation, validation, appreciation, etc).  We then develop a checklist of all the things we expect to happen in order for those feelings to be produced. And when things don’t happen the way we thought they would happen, we can become extremely disappointed, anxious, stressed, or hurt. 

The problem with the unmet expectations and pity party roller coaster is that it is usually self-focused versus being God and others focused. We tend to go into a situation, not to serve others, but to serve ourselves through the events, experiences, and relationships. And this roller coaster of unmet expectations and pity parties breeds regret, anger, resentment, and grudges…four things that steal joy from life. 

We are NOT meant to get our self worth, validation, affirmation, or appreciation from events, experiences, and relationships. We can only get those things from our relationship with God. He completes you…not your family, not your spouse, not your job, not a widget, and not a specific experience.

For the fruit of His spirit is:  love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23a). 

Remove your self-focus and shift your thoughts to God and others and see how much more you enjoy the ride of life. The more confident you become in your identity in Christ, the more you are free to enjoy and cherish the ups and the downs. 

So the next time you are experiencing despair in a situation and throwing yourself a little pity party, try to shift your focus away from yourself and onto God and others. Or to say it another way…Don’t ask what the event, experience, or relationship can do for you…ask what you can do for the event, experience, or relationship. (Note: Yes that last sentence was a spin off from John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural address). 

Know Better. Do Better. Live Better. Remove Self-Focus from Expectations

Rocks before Sand!

Scripture: 

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law.

~Galatians 5:22-23

Theme Song: 

Kutless - “Identity” (Official Lyric Video)

References Used:

• The Office, created by Greg Daniels and Roger Nygard, Deedle-Dee Productions and Universal Media Studios, 2005-2013.
• Moonstruck, directed by Norman Jewison. Starring Cher, Nicolas Cage, Olympia Dukakis, MGM, 1987.
• Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003, 2009 by Holman Bible Publishers, Nashville Tennessee. All rights reserved.