Stop Expecting You From Others
By: Jason Henry
Tags: Self Improvement, Life Lessons, Relationships, Self, Personal Development

For the past few weeks, I’ve had conversations with family and friends where they shared their disbelief at their own family, friends and partners.

They work themselves into such a frenzy trying to figure out the other person. Their minds are like those link boards you see in detective movies as they try to find the culprit of why this person is such an utter moron.

But the answer is really simple: they did what they did because they aren’t you. You’re upset because you expected them to value what you value and to do what you do. The illusion has been shattered and you feel deceived.

The truth is that you deceived yourself.

There’s an excerpt from Eat, Pray, Love where Elizabeth Gilbert wrote, “I have a tendency not only to see the best in everyone, but to assume that everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential.”

And of course she’d say that. She wrote a memoir that was on the New York Times Best Seller List for three and a half years, which also became a movie grossing $204.6 million. Clearly she was emotionally capable of reaching her highest potential — at least professionally.

But to believe that others believe in themselves in the same way you believe in them is foolish. They may not even want it for themselves.

People show you who they are all day long. The question is whether or not you believe them, or if you’re going to project your personality, values and desires onto them.

Now here’s the kicker.

I don’t think the quote I just referenced from Eat, Pray, Love is totally true.

I don’t think Elizabeth Gilbert was being completely honest.

In her memoir, Gilbert wrote about her failed marriage, failed rebound and her new love with a Brazilian businessman she met in Bali.

But the truth is that her marriage ended in divorce because she was seeing someone else, the relationship she forged that led to her infidelity also failed and the new relationship she would embark on with the Brazilian also ended because she got entangled with someone else.

The truth is that she was a “seduction addict,” as she stated in a New York Times article she wrote in 2016.

I’m not here to kick anyone when they’re down. However, I find this to be pretty ironic.

In writing a post about not expecting people to be like you, I chose a quote and expected it to be from a source that was trustworthy.

But in researching the quote and what Gilbert’s love life has been like since the book was published in 2006, I’m glad I did my due diligence. Because as much as she assumed that “everyone is emotionally capable of reaching his highest potential,” she hadn’t begun her own ascent to her highest potential yet.

In her New York Times article she came clean about her indiscretions and how she had even let go of good men for bad ones.

I’m happy to have read that she’s in a better place now. We’ll see if this is true.

But with all this talk of Elizabeth Gilbert, I don’t want you to lose the point of all of this.

We all have a tendency to project who we are and what we want onto others. Instead of “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” it is “others should do unto you that which you want them to do unto you while you do whatever the hell you want.”

The reality is that we’re all different. As a result, we are putting ourselves in danger and setting ourselves up for disappointment when we assume we are all the same.

In my case, I didn’t think people I cared about would hide what they were doing behind my back and then stutter or go silent when I confronted them about it. I didn’t expect dishonesty.

However, as I mentioned before, people will show you who they are. But are you paying attention? Or are you just hoping that they are who you hope they are?

Because they both had several instances of questionable behavior and backstabbing in their past. For some hare-brained reason, I thought they wouldn’t do those things to me. I thought I was cherished enough for them to treat me the way I treated them.

Even when I saw them do shady things to our other friends, it’s as if my brain registered what they did but stopped itself from computing to the obvious answer: they’re untrustworthy and selfish.

If you’ve been in a similar situation you know exactly what I’m talking about. It’s this moment of truth you shove into the recesses of your mind because what you initially believed about them is more comforting than reality.

And the only way to combat this tendency of burying the truth is to drop the notion that people value and desire the same things you do.

When you run a business, you can’t assume that people will have the same work ethic as you. When you embark on a new relationship, you can’t assume that your partner wants the same things out of a relationship as you. When you’re in traffic, you can’t assume that people will be as patient (or impatient) as you. When you read an inspirational book or quote, you can’t assume that the person who wrote it can actually stand by it.

I wish I knew this two years ago, but I know it now.

So I challenge you to stop thinking that people are like you. You are your own unique blend of traits, history, likes, dislikes and unfortunately, trauma.

The only way you can be sure of who anyone really is, is to look at what they show you — and also what they refuse to show you.

Those two things will be enough.