““Anger always comes from frustrated expectations””

— Elliot Larson

Frost covered everything on a crisp and clear morning.

Sunrise on a frosty morning, captured by my daughter Hayle

I did not expect frost, but it came anyway. It covered the garden plants and our car, killing off the former and obscuring the latter.

It meant starting the car a little early for the drive to school. It meant a little scraping. It meant a little unexpected inconvenience.

Like frost, expectations cover everything, killing somethings and inconveniencing others.

For example, we expect something to be hard which makes it hard, killing our ambition.

We drive home from work, and run into heavier than usual traffic. It irritates us because we expected something different. Yet, the only thing inconveniencing us is our expectations.

We give a gift and are angry because the recipient did not appreciate it. The gift was good, the recipient was good, and we are doing good. But our expectations were misplaced.

Frost can also obscure realities through lack of expectation. Disasters are unlikely, but possible and with a little preparation we can better our chances. Yet, often we do not expect them and fail to prepare. It is the frost of ambivalence.

Reality is what it is. It is our expectations which cover and obscure it, angering and inconveniencing us.

Fortunately, we are not required to set expectations. Frost is not inevitable.

But if we do get frustrated by the frost, look up. There’s probably a beautiful sunrise to look at instead.

We expected the unexpected during our evacuation training. Part of my role on our office’s Emergency Response Team.