What if we’ve been looking at one another through expectation instead of presence?
The moment we meet someone, something often begins inside us.
We imagine.
We compare.
We predict.
We define.
Without realizing it, we begin placing expectations upon another human being before we’ve truly met them.
We expect them to complete us.
To agree with us.
To heal us.
To become the person we’ve already imagined.
Then, when they don’t…
We call it disappointment.
But perhaps disappointment isn’t always born from who they are.
Perhaps it begins with who we expected them to be.
Every human being is more than our first impression.
More than our assumptions.
More than the story we’ve written before they’ve had the opportunity to tell their own.
Real understanding asks something difficult of us.
It asks us to set our expectations aside long enough to encounter another person as they are—not as we need them to be.
Maybe love isn’t the ability to define another.
Maybe love begins the moment we stop trying to.
— One Light Amongst Many
