To have or not have expectations?

aka: "the root of all heartache." This will be something I question for the rest of my life as well.

Rather than decide on a "case-by-case" basis, I'll say that my default is to not have any expectations. If anything, I'm the first to assume the worst!

On the other hand, I want to be surrounded by people who are trustworthy and responsible. If they say they're going to do something by a certain time on a certain day, then they're asking me to expect them to deliver nothing more, nothing less.

By having to resort to the former of methods means that I am not surrounded by people who are trustworthy and responsible and that's extremely unfortunate. There's a lot of talk about how difficult it is to give trust back to someone after it's been handled carelessly but part of me wants to be vulnerable just so the recklessness of some people will be evident to them. Am I heartless for doing that? Shouldn't they learn their lesson? Shouldn't they witness how destructive and crippling their carelessness can be?

But instead, there's another reason. Grace. Shouldn't I be vulnerable and expect the best from people because Christ's example beckons me to do the same (doesn't that just sound nice?). I know he chose to love some pretty unloveable people, hence his death and resurrection. Let's see how long that'll continue to motivate me. Getting bruised every once in a while should be something I can recover from anyway (e.g. forgiveness exercises).

Do I practice 1 John 4:19?