Great Expectations

​The nomadic life of expats brings with it a never ending cycle of
expectations and also disappointments. As you move from one place to another you always have expectations about that place. 

I always liked this part most of my expat life:  a new country with new hopes, new aspirations and expectations. Dreaming about how it will be and having expectations of a place or a person is not a bad thing it makes you fall in love a bit with the place or person but dealing with the disappointment  when expectations are not met is a much  greater challenge and maybe the real challenge in life.  I quite like having expectation about my own life, and I am very much trying to deal with disappointment when these are not met.  

I try to have realistic expectations but as life goes they are not always met. I don’t think I will want to give up having expectation on life in general and more particular on the expectation I have set for myself.  Why would I? For me there is a link between motivation and having expectations… If I  cannot have any expectation towards my life why would I even bother to do anything to live up to these expectations? They define the life I want to live and what I want to achieve. To prevent disappointment or fear , we may deny anything we secretly hope for. We presume if we don’t have any expectations, we can’t be disappointed. The truth is we all have expectations, some too high some too low.

The key question is: how do you deal with disappointment?  
Are expectations not  just your beliefs projected in the future?  

If  your expectations are not met you probably needed that reality check.  And this is where
the shoe fits. When returning back to your ‘home country’ the people around you  and you upon returning expect ‘a sameness’.  When returning  to our ‘home country’ the people around us expect us to behave, think and share the same ideas. And that is when the stress comes in, we cannot live up to that expectation. We have lived a totally different lifestyle in comparison to most of  the people in our ‘home country’.

Our international  experience has made us who we are. For all those years abroad expats were
excused to be ‘different’. When I was living our international life nobody was surprised to see differences because I was not from that place. Now back home we expect to feel sameness  with the people around us while reality tells us, you have changed and the people in your home country have changed.

source: Matt Wisniewski

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