What do you expect?

I like it when I know what to expect from people.  It quells disappointment when you don't expect more than they can ever give you.  The trouble is when you expect very little from people and they still don't give you it, then the disappointment is even greater.  There is the argument that you shouldn't expect anything from people at all but in practice that's not that easy to do.  If you don't expect anything positive you inevitably expect the negatives instead which isn't a particularly comfortable outlook to have on life.

You might argue that you shouldn't expect anything positive or negative but that in itself is not possible either because the idea that you should expect "nothing" is a logical fallacy, you can't expect something that doesn't exist, you come to the conclusion that expecting neither positive nor negative means you should expect neutrality - for things to stay the same.  Life is forever changing, nothing in life ever stays the same forever, expecting things to stay the same is as fruitless as expecting the positives or the negatives.

So what should you expect?  There is the last grasp offering in the argument to say that you shouldn't have expectations at all.  That doesn't hold up in practice either, not unless you're going to be incredibly isolationist and incredibly self centred to the point where you don't have input from anyone at all.  Otherwise your plans and your goals inexorably include how you think other people will react and by virtue therefore your expectations.  In other words you have to expect something.

Is it possible to become so self centred?  Unless you are completely self sufficient then the answer is resoundedly no.  So that brings us back to square one, what do you expect?  What should you expect?  Even if you were to become completely isolationist the problem with that mentality is that you still have at least one expectation from people - you expect to be left alone.

I think, therefore I am.  Addendum: People exist, therefore I must expect something of people.