Esperar
Yesterday as I was driving I was thinking absent-mindedly about what it meant to expect something. In the course of my internal dialogue, I found myself wondering how "to expect" would translate into Spanish. Hard as I tried, I couldn't come up with a good equivalent to the word. The closest I could come was the word, "esperar."
It continued to nag at me after I got home, so I took out a dictionary to see if it had a better translation than mine.
To expect: Esperar (wait, expect, hope for)
So I was right.
Esperar. To wait for something. To hope for something. To expect something.
I was frustrated that the Spanish word failed to convey what I felt expectation meant. To have a word that was so multi-purpose seemed to fall short. And yet, what I know of the Spanish language is that its words tend to carry greater depth and meaning than any equivalent in my native language. So I sat with it.
Esperar. To wait, to hope, to expect.
What is expectation, if not the hope of something happening? And what is hope, if not the confidence that it will happen? And what do expectation and hope entail, if not the ability to wait to see the object of our desire come to fruition?
Maybe the three are interconnected. Maybe our English stand-alone, to expect, only paints half (or a third) of the picture.
Because in reality, hope carries with it an insinuation of confidence, of belief in the feasibility of something. Hope is not just a blind stab in the dark, grasping at straws. Real hope is fixed on something, it is active and full of intention. To hope for something is to really believe it could happen. It's to expect it.
And likewise, expectation can't stand alone. When we are expecting something we are not yet in a place where it is realized. So it connotes the need to wait, the need to hope--to hold onto the desire and the dream until it becomes a reality. To expect something can't be separated from hoping and waiting.
As I sat mulling over the implications of the translation, I wondered how my own hope and expectations and ability to wait might be different if I really grasped their interconnectedness? Do I hope haphazardly, more wishing than placing my aim firmly on something? Maybe that's not hope at all, but daydream. And when I expect something, am I filled with a sense of hope? Am I prepared for the long haul? Or are my dreams and aspirations abandoned when the hope flickers out and the wait extends beyond what I was prepared to give?
Maybe you can't have one without the others. Maybe in every situation, the best we can do is esperar.
It continued to nag at me after I got home, so I took out a dictionary to see if it had a better translation than mine.
To expect: Esperar (wait, expect, hope for)
So I was right.
Esperar. To wait for something. To hope for something. To expect something.
I was frustrated that the Spanish word failed to convey what I felt expectation meant. To have a word that was so multi-purpose seemed to fall short. And yet, what I know of the Spanish language is that its words tend to carry greater depth and meaning than any equivalent in my native language. So I sat with it.
Esperar. To wait, to hope, to expect.
What is expectation, if not the hope of something happening? And what is hope, if not the confidence that it will happen? And what do expectation and hope entail, if not the ability to wait to see the object of our desire come to fruition?
Maybe the three are interconnected. Maybe our English stand-alone, to expect, only paints half (or a third) of the picture.
Because in reality, hope carries with it an insinuation of confidence, of belief in the feasibility of something. Hope is not just a blind stab in the dark, grasping at straws. Real hope is fixed on something, it is active and full of intention. To hope for something is to really believe it could happen. It's to expect it.
And likewise, expectation can't stand alone. When we are expecting something we are not yet in a place where it is realized. So it connotes the need to wait, the need to hope--to hold onto the desire and the dream until it becomes a reality. To expect something can't be separated from hoping and waiting.
As I sat mulling over the implications of the translation, I wondered how my own hope and expectations and ability to wait might be different if I really grasped their interconnectedness? Do I hope haphazardly, more wishing than placing my aim firmly on something? Maybe that's not hope at all, but daydream. And when I expect something, am I filled with a sense of hope? Am I prepared for the long haul? Or are my dreams and aspirations abandoned when the hope flickers out and the wait extends beyond what I was prepared to give?
Maybe you can't have one without the others. Maybe in every situation, the best we can do is esperar.
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