Expectations Are My Worst Enemy

One of my biggest struggles in life is my expectations.  I have always struggled with being able to control them and always find myself hurting due to them.  Most people in my life know this about me and I get constant reminders that I may need to lower my expectations for some people. Easier said than done for me.
The best way I can explain my expectations, especially of friends, is that I expect someone to treat me the same way I would treat them.  I expect niceness, kindness, genuineness, and truth amongst many things from people.  Because I believe those to be the basics of everyone and what I try to give out to others.  Unfortunately that is not true.  Not everyone acts that way.
I find myself in shock when I meet someone who does not match what my expectation was. Which is totally and completely wrong of me. I should accept someone for who they are, not who I want them to be. Quite a hard lesson to learn. 
Most days I pray that my expectations won't be too high. I want to be happy so I lower them when I can. But honestly that doesn't always work. My expectations are always in the back of my mind.
In life we are given struggles and this is one of my big ones. I hope one day my  expectations of others naturally won't be so high or that I learn to not expect everyone to live up to them. Until then I keep in trying!