I poked my head from our front door to smell the air. The mysterious tailless cat was sunning on a porch chair, confidently donning his gray and brown striped suit against his bright white belly. I petted him. Later, my wife Dacotah met him, petted him, and called him “Bob”. Bob was satisfied, we were passable petters. He lounged on our porch for several days and listened for our floor to creak, his signal of our opening door. With each opening, Bob greeted us with his disarming enthusiasm, an enthusiasm that said “your presence brings me happiness”.
We asked around. A neighbor had been feeding Bob, as a stray, for several months. Bob returned to our porch after each feeding, returned to his petting station, an arrangement that pleased our neighbor. When my wife put the basket on the porch, Bob quickly conveyed his understanding.
After more than a week of cheerful greetings, Dacotah insightfully said: “I have to admit, I feel happy when I open the door and Bob greets me”. Bob’s streetwise leeriness compounded the effectiveness of his greeting, a greeting that combined his reticence and joy in a way that told us: “though some have treated me poorly, I have hope for you”.
I’ve often accepted their immediate gift, accepted it while missing their sage message. There’s the happy dog, approaching with joyful trust and positive expectations, inviting us back to the pack after even the briefest of separations. Perhaps you’ve seen their bumper sticker: “I wish I could become the person my dog thinks I am”?, giving voice to their ancient message. From even our most somber moods we’re moved in response to their heart sent greeting, moved in response to an invitation for mutually joyful reunion.
Bob gave us a glimpse through our blindness; a peek at the power and the gift of generous expectations. He taught us to generalize from the adage “we create what we fear”, to our broader experience “we create what we expect”. Our expectations send a compact story of a potential future; a future of trust and cooperation, of possibility and opportunity, or of suspicion, disappointment, and tragedy. We have a choice.
Our expectation stories are denser than cordials, an implied narrative wrapped within our emotional container, so compact and arrestingly immediate that only the numb and overwhelmed can ignore. Our expectations create a field for present connection, a field with the power to animate others toward what we expect, an invitation to play their part in our expected future story. I cringe to consider some futures I’ve invited, and I am hopeful when I consider futures I’d prefer to invite.
Only a few weeks after he delivered his message, he disappeared. When we think of Bob we expect more of ourselves. Bob created that.