People disappoint. 

Expectations are steeped in ironic realism. Expectations in the animal wild are rooted in instinct. Expectations among humans are muddled by thought. While our biology means we are part animal kingdom, the higher order thinking that distinguishes us, unfortunately complicates us. If we acted purely on instinct I wonder if we would make different decisions or would be happier or feel less burdened. I wonder if we would attack when we are driven and, conversely, leave well enough alone when we are not. I wonder if we would not second guess so much. What’s more. If we acted on instinct alone, I wonder if we would fear at all. Or, if we did, would our fears be based on survival and not in whether we mattered at all. Instead, our expectations harness us with hope, and despair, and everything in between.

Psychology, the study of mind and behavior, thought and feeling, re-surged in the 20th century as an unapologetic argument that humans are complex animals with needs and wants not yet understood by the modern society. It has since propelled itself from back room therapeutic labs into courtrooms, classrooms, and boardrooms. It has transformed from tabooed talk to an acculturated conversation, challenging the norms we have come to question in our day to day lives. While the science of thinking and doing surfaced the advantages and challenges of being human, it has also forced into our conscience the raw and oft ashamed vulnerabilities of our humanity. Being human goes beyond higher order thinking that by scientific definition makes us human. Rather, there exists degrees of humanness. A scale by which we evaluate and adjust and then re-evaluate and adjust again, throughout the course of our existence. The scale is personal, individually crafted by our shifting shades of perception, clouded at times in bias. It is not fully defined nor is it ably predictable. It changes and morphs and evolves to meet and reach and even surpass our circumstances as they are presented. With each new or returned situation, higher order thinking is activated and reactivated, until all that remains is ourselves to make sense of it. To act and react, not on instinct alone. But rather with deepening reflecting judgement.

And, thus, introduces disappointment. 

Disappointment is arguably the worst consequence of our psychology. Happiness anger sadness excitement. Each serves its respective purpose in time and space. But disappointment. It lingers. Casts an oppressive shadow on our expectations for others, and, at times worse, ourselves. When one human places value on another, a difference generates. Like, for that moment in time, the scale tipped in expectation of a desired outcome, a particular yield, valid or not. One human making sense of the world through the subjective measure of another. A dangerous yet endearing condition of our mutual existences. And, when those same expectations are projected within, the weight of the scale dips to near pronation, raising the stakes on our own existence. As expectations inevitably fail, and disappointment invades. We are faced with choice. Fight or flight or forgive or forget. The gift and the curse at the end of each day, is each of us are all that remains to resolve our own humanity in time. The standards by which we ultimately surrender. So we must decide. Is it our biology or our version of humanity or all of the above that matters at all.