Expectations vs. Promises
I friend recently was wondering on social media about the difference between expectations and promises, so I thought I’d give it a stab.
First, I would start by looking at the roots of both words (etymology). Both are derived from Latin. With expectations coming from exspecto (to see out) and promise from promittere (to send forth). What does this tell us? Both indicate the direction of movement is from inside the person to outside the person. But with promise we are making a declaration as Merriam Webster wrote: “that binds the person who made it, either in honor, conscience, or law, to do or forebear a certain act.” So the declaration that is made in a promise is for some future act. ‘I promise to love you’ is a blanket declaration of future acts of love. Of course, it may be helpful to articulate more specifics about what those acts of love entail. However, it is never possible to fully state what that promise will mean in action, as the possibilities that you will face are nearly limitless. A promise starts with an intention inside of us, that becomes public when we actually make the promise.
What is the inside to outside movement of expectation? We have a hope or desire that someone will behave toward us in a specific manner and we are on the lookout for that hope or desire to be fulfilled by that person or people. The key question is whether that person or people made a promise to us or not. Reading further the definition of promise from Webster: ‘it is a declaration that gives the person to whom it is made the right to expect or claim the performance or forbearance of the act.’ Without the freely given promise made by the other person, any expectation that we hold would be free-floating and baseless.
A skill worth developing would be the power in dialogue to elicit and invite people to make promises. If you find that you are often having expectations of people that are disappointed, the best course is to have a conversation with that person, not so much about your disappointments, but about what that person freely and willingly might promise you. With that framework in place, in the event that the promise is not kept, you have created the space to discuss the broken promise.
November 18, 2018