Expectations

I think a lot of illness is related to expectations. I used to have a plan to only do three things every day. I suppose I still have that plan, although I usually forget these days. These are the three things we should do every day: 1) wake up (for obvious reasons); 2) find just ONE thing to be thankful for; and 3) handle just ONE difficulty with grace. No one can appreciate all of the wonderful things that occur every day. We're not that talented. We don't stay that focused on the positive things. How often do we appreciate the absence of our stroke, the absence of our tooth ache, the absence of our blindness? These are wonderful things. Then, of course, there are the flowers, the rain, the trees, the air and all of those things that we usually take for granted. Most of us forget to be thankful we have food. Then, we also can't expect that we're going to perform well at every difficult event. No one can do it. So how many things should we appreciate? How many difficulties should we handle elegantly? We have to set our own goals. If we set them too high, we're going to surely fail. This will create unhappiness with ourselves. Our expectations will be unachievable. So I came up with one of each.
This is how it works. Wake up (one thing done). Get out of bed (which may be hard to do - two things done). Take a shower and be thankful for running water (three things done). Then, we're done for the day. It was a successful day. There is nothing else that truly has to be done. So we can just sit back and enjoy what comes. If there are some things that we fail to enjoy, it's OK. The shower covers us. If there are challenges we don't measure up to, that's OK, we're covered by getting out of bed elegantly. This makes life easier.
The expectations we have of others are the same. If we expect others to do more than wake up, get out of bed and shower, we're being unreasonable with them. They have to be allowed to be human and fail. They have to be accepted that way. We need to make sure we don't get too upset about their weakness, since that's human.
This practice, I think, is the only way to really get through disease. There's that "one day at a time" saying. It's a good plan, because it tries to avoid creating ideas about tomorrows (which are expectations). Expectations aren't different from fears. They're the same thing. They are both thoughts about the future. One is future desires, the other is future non-desires. But either way, they are entirely out of our control. The ultimate non-control is death and it's twin brother disease. We can certainly (and should) exercise and eat well. But this only avoids some of the man-made diseases. It doesn't eliminate nature. So disease and death come. They are unpredictable at every turn. Like when people "suddenly drop dead".
In the chronic illness situations there is great fear. There is expectation about recovery and treatment effectiveness. There is expectation from the family for a certain measure of support (which may not come, since they may not be able to provide it). But perhaps one of the most challenging is the expectation that our health will be with us. It's not realistic. Some day, it's got to go (unless we're one that dies all of a sudden). We must make sure to let go of this expectation. Otherwise, when the inevitable comes, there is great disappointment. Most of the patients with illness struggle with letting go. They still expect their health. The fact that it isn't there seems terrible. It seems that they were "robbed" of the health they had. But in reality, they are only experiencing the inevitable. We all have or will go through it. It's not that it's enjoyable to be sick. Of course it isn't. But when we see what is naturally going to happen, it's easier. We know that the flowers on the plants will go with the season. But it doesn't make us that sad. It has to be that way.
We really aren't different than flowers at all.