We all have conscious or unconscious rules for our life. We have rules for ourselves, others, things, places, etc. When we get frustrated or angry, often it is from one of our rules being broken.

     Rules are usually called ‘shoulds‘. Take the example of a person walking into a coffee shop right in front of you. He opens the door for himself and lets the door fall right behind him without keeping it open for you even though you are only a few feet from the door. You get frustrated and say ‘thanks’ in a sarcastic tone. The should or rule broken here is: people hold the door open for others when they’re only a few feet away from the door.

     Easy to understand in the previous example but what about other, more subtle shoulds or rules we have in our relationships. Take Michelle and Tony, a couple who has been married for 5 years. Michelle has an expectation that Tony should ask how her day was. After all, doesn’t he care about how she is doing and how work is going for her? Tony has the same expectation with an additional expectation that Michelle should know he has a lot of stress at his job and should be trying to support him more. Both partners get frustrated when their expectation isn’t fulfilled and begin building resentment for each other.

     Expectations, rules, and ‘shoulds’ can be healthy, they lay out the world in a clear, familiar way. This lay out, ”the way the world works”, is born from our experiences. However, it would help for us to have awareness of our experience and context. Without this awareness, we can consistently lay out the world that sets us up to be let down, disappointed, neglected, frustrated, etc. We need awareness to identify our experience, that is, what is going on for us. And awareness of context–others or things outside of us in a certain time and place.

     The context in the first example of the poor doorman may be that: at that particular time, the man had a very important meeting at the coffee shop and became so extremely preoccupied about planning for it and rehearsing what he was going to say that he didn’t realize there was someone behind him. Imagine the man looking back and giving that context and explanation to you after he realized there was someone right behind him. Our rule/should would still be intact since he apologized and ‘the world would be right again’. Often we’re not so lucky and we must deal with our rules being broken and the frustrations and disgust that comes with it.

     Start with recognizing what you have expectations for throughout your daily life (alarm going off, water running, car starting, people smiling after you smile at them, others responding to your emails and on and on). Then begin putting these expectations into a context–maybe it’s not as personal as it initially feels.