Laundry and Expectations

12/20/13…What happens when desires become expectations? The answer. Not much fun. I find some parallels between the Toil and Marriage. Let me explain. Recently I listened to a sermon by Tom Oyler, pastor of Grace Fellowship Church. The message centered on this idea of desires and expectations. Desires before a marriage are ok. Desires in a marriage are ok. However, Tom cautions desires in a marriage should be kept as desires and not moved into an expectation box. Once desires become expectations, there is no acknowledgement of appreciation from the other party. He also cautions against delight becoming duty and covenant becoming a contract. For now though, I would like to comment more about desires versus expectations.

There can be many desires one brings into a marriage. Here is one I thought of. I do not expect my wife to make dinner for me but she does a lot. And I consciously make a point of saying thank you on numerous occasions. I really do appreciate how she expresses her love for me in this act of cooking dinner. But honestly, I am a big boy and I can take care of myself regarding finding something to eat. So although I have a desire for a prepared meal after a long day’s work, I do not expect it. On the other hand, laundry is a different matter. I was single for almost 8 years. If I do some quick math, I probably washed, dried and hung clothes over 500 times during this time period. So I know how to do laundry. When I married Melody, she began washing my clothes on a regular basis. At some point around year two though, I realized my desire of having clean clothes became an expectation. I acknowledge at this point in our marriage, if the laundry has not been done, I actually am a little miffed about it. Tom Oyler would point out my desire for clean clothes suddenly became an expectation. Why? For one, I never thank my wife for clean clothes. After all, why would I express gratitude for an expectation? There are no kind words for the countless hours she spends cleaning my dirty socks, and I try to rationalize my lack of gratitude by saying I work all day while she stays home. This is a sure sign of an expectation. And if I am not careful, my expectations put on her will soon cause her delight in doing my laundry to become a duty. This is what Tom warns me of. When desire on my part becomes expectations, then soon Melody will feel doing my laundry is a duty more than a delight. Once the other party begins feeling like the delight is really a duty, the relationship is in trouble.

Now I think of this in a work mode. In particular between leadership and employees. I wish this category did not exist but it does, and no matter how one tries to break this down, the categories still and will always exist. When the leadership of a company or a plant does something for the employees, the newness of it generally energizes people. But repeat this a number of times and watch what happens. Expectations creep in. Once employees expect something, there is no longer appreciation or gratitude. Now leadership begins feeling like the activity is more of a duty and they become worn down. Pretty soon the activity has no meaning to anyone. The reverse also happens with employees who desire to please leadership.

So this is the question. How as leadership do we move expectations by employees back to the desire box, so we can continue feeling delight in serving them and doing what we can to make their work life joyful?

I end with this. Last week, I carried all the laundry down and started two loads of laundry. First time in two years.