Before I went to volunteer at this camp, I already had made up in my mind how everything was going to go. My previous health camp volunteer experiences were very upsetting. I had this idea that because I was doing my job right in every detail that everyone else should do the same. I have had this problem mainly because growing up making sure that my sister or, as we got older, my brother would do everything they were supposed to. Otherwise, we would have to deal with the discipline of my father and cause tension between our mother and him.
This serial codependency lead me to look for relationships with people that I would have to keep track of. I made friendship that weren’t friendship because they were usually one-sided. I dreaded being in group settings because no one would do their job the way I expected them to. These expectations are unrealistic.
Today brought about a change after a teacher asked me what was a trigger to stress for me. I told her that people who say their committed to one things but do another completely stress me out and, honestly, piss me off. Her solution to this was astounding. She told me that I can’t expect anything out of human beings because it is human nature to say one thing and mean another.
She also told me that my expectation of people holding their commitments was more my problem than the person not holding their end of the bargain. I was lost for a second but then relieved because knowing that this causes me stress and that I’m the one causing it makes it really easy to let this go. I don’t want to be stressed and I don’t want to hate people. Let them be as they are uncommitted and humans.
I have had such a problem with this because I built friendships like pacts. Although we should build friendships in this way knowing that a friend has our back. We shouldn’t place this unrealistic expectation on them to be perfect. I cannot claim this perfection label myself so why would I place it on anyone else? Don’t expect anything out of people not even for them to be their word and the disappointment will be less and you’ll be happier.