childish disappointment

early this morning, I got to thinking about disappointments...especially when it comes to loved ones.
I think it often happens that we put these ginormous expectations on people around us: hoping they would respond emotionally, remember a certain date, and care about you in a particular way. We set up these grandiose notions of love and we expect them to be fulfilled - we make ourselves believe that we are absolutely deserving and create scenarios where we are on the receiving end of every blessing.

and yet...little time is spent on how we can better love others. We mold ourselves to be "receiving beings" rather than "giving beings". And even when we give, we do it with expectations....we love in this amateur and elementary way that requires lots of things in return, and again, we get disappointed when it doesn't happen.

Our notion of love has become so Hollywood-esque, in the hopes that the denouement would always end in the protagonist's favour. Maybe in the real world, the protagonist is not so important at all - the story isn't just all about ME or YOU, but it's one that involves all of us. if we lessen the burden on others to make us happy all the time, then maybe we would begin to understand our minuteness in the greater scheme of things. when we pile god-like expectations on people, we are bound to be disappointed. the flesh and the bone are altogether temporal and bound to falter - so let's quit our whining about the lack of mistletoe love that we want to receive.