To discuss this topic, I would like you to read through the following story and imagine yourself being in the story.
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On a rainy day while coming back from work, it was raining heavily. I took out my umbrella and rushed to my car which was parked at the open area. After getting into my car, I quickly locked the door, buckled up and drove towards home.
Half an hour later, I safely reached home and I was relieved that the rain had stopped.
I changed into a new set of cofy clothes and tossed the worn clothes inside a laundry basket.
After that, I walked into the kitchen, took out a pot from the cabinet, filled the pot with water and then started to cook a pack of instant noodle.
After having my noodle, I rested on the sofa and spent my night watching a drama before I went to sleep.
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From this story and your imagination, I have a few questions to ask you. You may mentally jot down your answers, or it is good to write them down in case you may have forgotten later.
1) What is the colour of the umbrella you used to walk through the rain towards your car?
2) What is the color of the clothes you changed into?
3) Did you notice how your laundry basket looks like? Again, what is it's colour?
4) What is the pot that you used to cook the noodle?
5) What is the instant noodle you were having?
6) What drama is that on the TV you watched before sleeping?
Have you got your answers prepared?
Let's compare your answer to mine, shall we?
1) My umbrella was blue colour and it has plaid pattern on it. (Is your umbrella looks like mine?)
2) I changed into a white singlet and dark blue shorts. (How about you?)
3) The laundry basket is grey in color.
4) I used a dark brown porcelain pot to cook my instant noodle.
5) I had a packed of instant Asam Laksa.
6) I watched "Desperate Housewives" before I slept.
Of all the questions, how many questions you share same answer with mine?
I dare to say, not many or none at all.
Back to the topic of different expectations, now do you know how does this issue arise?
Clearly we answer our questions based on our own experience and background, and probably the things you imagined yourself using in the story are the ones you use in real life.
We have so many types of umbrella to choose from, the types of clothes we want to wear, the noodle we want to eat, the drama that we want to watch...(and so on)...
So how can we expect others to know which umbrella we are really talking about when we don't specify how the umbrella looks like?
Likewise, in many life situations, we may not communicate effectively of what we really want or expect from the others and hence creating different expectations from both parties.
Isn't it better if we can communicate clearly at the very first place, to safe time and energy, and not getting frustrated later by others when our expectations are not met?
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PS: This is part of the topic being discussed in the communication skill workshop I had attended. As I find it quite interesting, I would like to relay the discussion to you in this blog.
Can you think of other reasons that may contribute to different expectations?
In what kind of scenario in life that you have encountered such issue?
You may leave your comment on the comment box below.
Enjoy reading :)
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