How I learned to lower my expectations
At work we have a favorite saying that says: lower your expectations and you’ll be fine!
In other words, having expectations almost always results in disappointments for us. This may be the case for us at work, but I believe this idea is universally applicable, to certain extents.
So what kind of expectations am I talking about? You know, as a matter of fact, almost everyone one of us has some sort of expectations that he/she lives by. Without them, we’d be lost. Like the child expecting his mother to love him unconditionally. Is that too much to ask? I wouldn’t say so.
But it’s when we raise the bar a little more that we hit the hard ceiling of disappointment at many times. It occurs to me that lots of times we unintentionally raise our expectations for some reason. Say for example that there’s this bonus that most companies do give out at certain times in the year. After trying out several jobs at different companies which all of them do this, you come to expect that this should be the case for pretty much every company out there, right? Well who’s to say so? Unless it’s a law to do so, we can’t go on expecting every one of them to do the same. You see, in this scenario, you have just accidentally expected something from someone which you shouldn’t have in the first place. And now you got a bump in your head from hitting that ceiling.
So what I’m trying to say is:
If we wanted to live a less stressful life, we should learn to lower our expectations from other people as much as possible. Try not to expect them to do things unless they’re bound to in which case if they don’t they would go below humanly-acceptable levels.
See where I’m getting here? Whenever someone disappoints you somehow, ask yourself: Should I have expected him/her/them to do so in the first place? What if I just didn’t and the hell with them. If they do it, that’s fine. If they didn’t, da hell with them. I don’t need them.
One’s perception can predict his own disappointment. Period.
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Comments
June 18th, 2007 at 5:29 am
Yes Allaedin,
That is a very true observation a lot of the time. But what you must remember is that there are some people you can depend on. Usually really good friends that you’ve established a relationship with that you are important to. No one can be important to everybody, and that’s why some people will always let you down, disappoint you.
The disappointment happens with someone that you desire to be important to, but you aren’t important to them. So they don’t meet your expectations.
And you know who you are important to, so you just have to take inventory and make the most of these relationships, and know that there will be more of these relationships in the future. So in that sense, you will find that some people do meet your expectations, but you don’t place as high a value on these relationships -
When you appreciate those relationships more, then the people who disappoint you won’t matter as much.
- Julie
June 18th, 2007 at 11:54 am
Well-said Julie. I agree with you on the friendship level.
But I was sort of speaking on a more broader perspective. Like having expectations from your employer, audience and situations. My point is that if we learn to expect the worst and not get hung up on our idealistic views, we just might save ourselves few more disappointments.