Don’t Expect Too Much.
The size of your expectations is like the size of your balls, the larger they are, the larger the potential of hurt they can cause. We, humans, are swayed by emotions and emotions give birth to expectations, sometimes reasonable other times unrealistic. We can have expectations from just anything and anyone. When we put effort into something, we expect the result to be perfect which is not possible every time (like the ‘even my dog won’t eat cake’ I baked recently), when we extend a helping hand to a family member or a friend, we expect them to help us in our time of need. When we give money to a beggar, we expect him to show gratitude. When we make a joke, we expect people to laugh. ( even though the sense of humor is declining faster than polar ice caps)
It is only natural for us to have expectations but having too much of them is outright stupid if not self-sabotaging. Others have no obligation to fulfill our expectations and we have no obligation to fulfill others expectation. We are only mortals (though some world leaders don’t believe so about themselves). The truth is that we can’t control the results of our efforts nor can we control others' actions/opinions, the only thing we have control over is our actions and how we decide to react to unfavorable outcomes. As someone who has seen his fair share of unfavorable outcomes, I can tell you handling them is not as easy as preaching to others about handling them (which I am doing right now) but the only thing we can do about it is to learn from them and let it go. Like everything in this world, even unfavorable outcomes are temporary (except for my beer belly which seems pretty permanent).
Most of us focus far too much on negative results which can range from romantic misadventures to getting rejected for a dream job. We think too much about those feelings and let them affect our present which in turn diminishes the effort we put into the present impacting the quality of results we get thereby pushing us into a vicious cycle of unproductivity and regret. Perhaps it is because of the way our mental conditioning has been done over the years by movies and society, moreover, social media rubs salt in our wounds as effortlessly as a Thai masseuse rubs oil on our skin. Social Media shows everyone seems to be having the time of their life in picture-perfect exotic locations, driving expensive cars, parting hard, while also being in perfect shape. Just Fucking Utopian.
But we can’t let social media, movies, or even society shape our opinions. Why the hell should we care about what others are doing with their life? Each one of us has his own path for some it involves running on a hedonic treadmill for someone else it could be the search for the purpose of life (for me it is to drink my single malt in peace every evening surrounded by pines)
but the beauty of it is no path is better or worse than the other, they are just different so the comparison is useless. Our focus should be internal. We should ask ourselves what we really expect from our life. If it’s materialistic possessions you want that’s totally fine but you should be sure about it. We should have a fair idea of the summit before starting the climb so that when we reach the top, it will be all worth it. Nobody wants to feel like that jackass, who reached the top of the mountain only to realize it’s the wrong peak. ( Trust me, I have been there).
