There's one human trait I believe causes the most resentments and conflict in our relationships and associations. And most of us don't even recognize when we are doing this.
It's such a widespread trait that, if we don't pause to become aware, our actions easily slip past as another's inexplicable anger or frustration.
We too often fail to realize that our own words and actions could be wholly responsible for prompting the hard feelings that arise within us toward others.
Any idea what I'm talking about? You just might, since all of us are guilty of doing it with our kids, families, friends and elsewhere.
Realize it or not, each of us is continually setting expectations in others. It happens mindlessly.
For example, when my son and daughter were children, I took great delight in filling an entire living room with gifts at Christmas.
Just after dawn on Christmas morning, I'd watch with their mother as they tore into one gift after another, pausing momentarily to glance at it before tossing it aside and grabbing another. It went that way until all 20 or 30 were spread across the floor with the mountain of wrapping paper.
"Is that all?" they'd invariably whine afterwards.
Much later I realized how by burying innocent little humans in presents each Christmas, I also inadvertently was setting their expectations that anything less than 20 or 30 presents would be a bad Christmas. Plus, I recognized that I'd been doing this largely to make myself feel like a good-time Santa.
In other words, much of the unhealthy process of inflated expectations was doing more harm to their spirits and developing value structures than I realized.
So it is with virtually every interaction we share with others. Think about it, valued readers. If you call or text someone every day for a week, then fail to maintain this pattern you have established, you risk causing friction or resentment in the person you suddenly left hanging.
When that person questions this change in your pattern, it's common to become defensive and upset with him.
During my teaching years at Ohio State, I discovered that if I gave a B student one or more A's on assignments, he became disappointed when he then earned a B. Some felt I was being unfair after raising their expectations.
If you wave at passing neighbors every day for two weeks, then fail to do so for a couple of days, you have broken the pattern you chose to establish, which can lead to all forms of unfounded speculation on their part. They may even stop waving at you, believing you are upset. Crazy stuff, eh?
If you've regularly, mindlessly, thrown about the phrase "I love you," then innocently miss a couple of opportunities to do so, odds are you'll be creating feelings in the other person, perhaps even suspicion and resentment.
You in turn become upset when that person asks what's wrong because there is nothing wrong, but you did change your expected pattern.
The $120 tennis shoes I chose to buy my young son in 1980 set the expectation for all his future tennis shoes. Should I then become upset with him when that's what he insists upon?
I expect to get a phone call from my sister as she drives to work each morning in Santa Fe. If she breaks that expectation, I naturally wonder if something is wrong.
If you send flowers to a loved one on an affectionate whim, it's wise to understand that even that one thoughtful act sets a precedent expectation you'd best be prepared to perpetuate. That's exactly why they write songs that bemoan: "You don't send me flowers any more."
I recognize just how many times I've become upset with the reactions of others to the expectations I, alone, established in them. I created the conditions that naturally came to reflect on me.
Football fans at Alabama, through their team's behavior and winning record, have come to expect to finish on top each year. Disappointment and frustration would abound with the Crimson Tide faithful should their team go 9-3 one season and their much-celebrated coach suddenly come under fire.
Food for thought this morning to hopefully trigger a greater awareness of how we are continually establishing expectations in others, thereby creating much of the conflict within our lives without ever realizing how or why it happened.
JBU tops again
Talk about setting expectations. The word's out, as it has been for the fifth year in a row: John Brown University, with a student census just over 2,000 on a 200-acre campus in Siloam Springs, has been named at the top of colleges in the South.
Last week, U.S. News and World Report's Best Colleges Guide for 2015 named this quality institution as tying for the top college among 98 analyzed across the South, the second time it's been ranked number one by the magazine since 2009.
The guide also labeled JBU as a best value and called it an "up and comer" university.
I'm one of many who's proud of all this college has achieved. My only confusion lies in determining how JBU can become and up-and-comer when it's already perched at the top.
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Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com. Read his blog at mikemastersonsmessenger.com.
Editorial on 09/20/2014