Expected vs. Willing

For my first post of 2013 (and the first in over 4 months), I decided to tackle the topic of expected and willing.

The idea of being expected to do something is the negative side of being a responsible person in life. You've set a precedent that others come to be familiar with. If you deviate just once from that pattern, it comes across as negative. Like succeeding 99% of the time and getting little to no credit for that, but that 1% failure is mentioned and takes center stage for all of those you surround yourself with.

That idea is where we as a human race fail. We like and crave praise, but it rarely happens.

As for the willing part, that's a fine line to define. There are many things in life that I do that are expected of me, but ones that I am willing to do. Because I want to. To those that don't know you are willingly doing something, they see it as an expectation. Does it matter that they don't see it as something you are willing to do? Yes, it actually does. But saying something to that effect might have you come across as expecting them to accept you as a willing participant and not as an expected member of the community.

They might worry that if you are not willing to do a previously expected task, that it won't get done. And there in lies the dichotomy that plays out in my head every day.

Of course, that would be setting a new expectation. One of reducing the expectations and creating more willing tasks.

I'm willing to accept that expectation.