Expectations

This had all the makings of a bad Monday. It felt impossible to get out of bed this morning. I was groggy and cranky and soooooo not ready for it to be Monday morning. It snowed overnight. Not enough to cause any trouble, but that ir snowed, as spring is about to come (at least technically), was annoying. It was cold today, for late March, with a very nasty wind. Looking ahead to the work day didn't improve the prospects any; I knew there were loose ends from last week and new problems looming. So, the forecast for the day overall was not good at all.

Well, go figure. The day ended being pretty good. Things got done. Some of the looming problems evaporated. I wasn't a bundle of energy but I had enough to do what I needed to do. The wind died down in the afternoon and it was almost pleasant outside. I got home at a reasonable hour and didn't feel like crawling into bed and passing out.

All of which got to Me thinking about not falling into the trap of expectations. Both negative ones and positive ones. Just like there are days like today, there are days when I woke up in a great mood, it was a beautiful day, I'm optimistic as could be and then the day goes completely to hell.

Obviously, it's impossible to have no expectations, ever. Dominants, of course, have generally more expectations. And obviously, high expectations often can be a motivator for the submissive. So in what sense are expectations a trap?

Expectations are a trap when they close off the possibility in One's mind that things can be different.

There are certain things that One might expect from One's submissive(s) -- many of these expectations are essentially givens, "routine" things that by their very simplicity and/or the passage of time have gotten to the point where they are just a fact of life.

But in that process another thing is happening as well, a thing that is often largely unconscious on the part of the Dom/me and the submissive. As things settle into a pattern, certain expectations are expressed and easily met, repetitively; at the same time, the very process by which those have become routine slowly forms other "givens" in the minds of both. These "givens" represent a second, unstated set of expectations, both positive and negative. This is partly the human mind "filling in the blanks" and partly our capacity to hear (and not hear) what we wish to in the words and actions of another person.

For the Dom/me, what emerges is an image of what the submissive is, in His or Her mind, capable of. While in one sense that's necessary and natural, it does, without Our realizing it, limit what the submissive is capable of, since what drives the submissive is typcially going to be the Owner's definition(s), both stated and unstated, of what represents a good submissive. That, to Me, is an atrificial state of affairs that should be avoided if possible.

Towards that end, I strive to not box Myself in by thinking that I know everything My girls are capable of as slaves. I am not always successful in that, of course. I also try to leave as little unstated as possible in this area. I let them know that I believe, in a very deep sense, that they have yet to begin to even touch what they are capable of as slaves. Whether they believe this of themselves or not is ultimately irrelevant; that I am keeping that premise close at hand always is the thing that matters. Because where the Leader leads, consciously or otherwise, is usually where the followers will end up.