image by wit

Human beings are, among other things, pattern-making machines. We look for commonalities, predict outcomes, and get a lot of satisfaction when things fit together as we expect them to. The world is like a big Easter egg hunt to our brains—and we tend to find what we are looking for.

This capacity to make order out of chaos serves us well in many respects. We’re able to organize systems that keep our world going. And we’re able to use our pasts as reference points for the present moment. If we’ve seen certain behavior or situations before, we can make better decisions on how to react, and better predictions of the consequences of any action. Like the old chestnut says, “Burn me once, shame on you. Burn me twice, shame on me.”

But there’s a downside to this pattern-seeking tendency, and that is that we tend to think we know a lot more than we actually do. And when we go through life expecting to see what we’ve seen before, we often miss opportunities for seeing and creating the new.

You see this all the time in romantic relationships. One partner has specific expectations for how she should be loved, and so when those expectations aren’t met, she feels bad. Meanwhile, her partner is showing her love in many different ways that she’s entirely missing. By focusing what she “knows” to be the right way to experience love, the new ways she’s not familiar with go right over her head. And both partners end up feeling unheard and uncared for.

What do we know about economics? A strong economy has to have double digit growth every year, right? And the bottom line is the most important marker. But maybe not. Maybe the strongest economy has less to do with the stock market than with knowing our neighbors and being involved in our communities. Maybe we can get our economic inspiration from cherry trees and sunshine instead of talking heads on TV.

Culture is the water we swim in, the air we breathe, so much a part of us that we can’t even see it. It conditions our expectations, and those expectations both limit our options and make us unhappy. When we unconsciously expect life to be a certain way, and it’s not, then we cry and moan about how awful our lives are.

I’m thinking here of my 30-something girlfriends who want to start families so desperately that the force of that desire pushes away prospective partners. Or people who expect to be treated badly, because they’ve been treated badly before, who position themselves so that this expectation becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Or men who think that women are x, y, or z, or women who think that men are, who miss the unique genius of the specific man or woman standing before them.

When we know too much about any given situation, we lay our expectations on it. If our ideas are reinforced, we may feel happy, and if they are refuted, we may get upset, but either way we miss out on the fullness of the moment. Our perceptions become skewed, and we limit the possibilities available to us.

If our goal is to create new ways of living and relating to each other—a new culture—then we must lay down our ideas about what we think we know and be open to discovering what is.

How can we do this? It’s a matter of being aware. I find that when I’m in a situation where my expectations are running the show, I start to feel tense in my body. What can I do to push my agenda? Will my expectation be met or not?

When I notice this happening, I make a concerted effort to relax and bring my attention to the present moment. I might look around to take in the details of the light in the space, or listen for ambient sounds, or put my attention on how my body feels. Focusing on physical aspects of the present moment can pull me out of my head games and dissolve the tension.

Another way to do this is to reframe my experience. Instead of looking for something specific, I look at the situation as an adventure, a discovery, or an anthropological exercise. Sometimes I become a child trying to understand why, or Margaret Mead gathering data for a paper, or Jodie Foster in Contact gazing out of her pod with wide-open eyes. When I look at things this way, I’m not so concerned about the outcome. I don’t need for it to go any specific way, so I can be open to however it goes. Spontaneity, fun, and freedom are released, and something new can arise.

This is truly what’s meant by the phrase “getting out of the comfort zone.” Right now most of us live in the land of What We Think We Know, and it’s mostly pretty snug and easy and predictable there. But if we are serious about creating new ways of living and interacting and building a functional, beautiful world, we have to get out of where we are and head into the realm of Looking Around Questioningly. Eyes clear, mind open, hands on.

I can see where my expectations and “knowledge” have put a damper on different parts of my life. Do you see this in your life as well? Or on a broader scale? What would it mean to you to get out of your comfort zone?