The Thing About Expectations

There is a lot to say about expectations. Everyone seems to have an opinion. I'm about to tell you mine.

 

 

But first...

Did you know that starting this month, The Walkabout Weekly Digest podcast will be available on your favorite podcast app? Catch new episodes every Sunday starting March 06, 2022. For now, listen on Spotify to the Walkabout Weekly Digest trailer:

 

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Lao Tzu will tell you to act without expectation. According to William Shakespeare, expectation is the root of all heartache. On the other hand, Sylvia Plath writes that if you expect nothing from somebody, you are never disappointed. But according to Sam Walton, high expectations are the key to everything. Eli Khamarov's take is that the best things in life are unexpected - because they were no expectations.

All this is very likely to get one quite confused!

 

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So what is writer Mandy Hale's take?

When you release expectations, you are free to enjoy things for what they are instead of what you think they should be.

If you think the above is interesting, this is what American author Louise Hay does:

I let go of all expectations. People, places and things are free to be themselves, and I am free to be me.

I find this fascinating. 

 

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On my birthday in July 2009, I wrote this post about expectations. The thing about life is that we cannot go about with zero expectations about anything. It is a human and natural thing to do. And whereas the expectation is just the beginning, it is the unexpected that changes our lives.

Earlier in oday's post, I indicated I'll share my opinion about expectations. Well, that is something I've elected to do in the first episode of the Walkabout Weekly Digest on Sunday, March 06. Not here, not now.

Meanwhile, listen to the podcast intro and let us know what you think.

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The only constant in life is change. You'll often find yourself going backwards and then forwards in this life. And that is no twisted logic. So much as things change, we all change as well...

Making Value Judgments

I have always wondered why it's never a big issue to buy someone beer or lunch worth thousands of shillings, but nearly impossible to just give him/her that exact amount in cash for no consideration at all. In fact, lending him/her that same amount as a repayable loan is rarely done so willingly.

In my thinking, the reason is partly because of the value we attach to some gestures. Giving away cash, even to a friend is in our minds not the same as buying the friend lunch, beer, a gift or any other act where you end up spending the same amount.
In other words, our judgment of value is not exactly rational.

In 2005, Dan Gilbert gave a talk at TED, where he explored our mistaken expectations. Check it out below:



In light of the above, how exactly do you make value judgments?

Have a great day.

Selling Ourselves Short

"No one believes their life will turn out just 'kind of okay'

We all think we're going to be great

...We are filled, with expectation...

Expectations of the trails we will blaze

The people we will help

The difference we will make

Great expectations of who we will be

Where we will go...

And we feel a little bit robbed when our expectations aren't met"

- Meredith Grey (Grey's Anatomy Season 3 Episode 13)

Late last year, a very dear friend asked me why I often loudly and proudly claim that I'm awesome. She opined that I risked coming across as arrogant and immodest.

I partly agreed. Yes, OTHER people would think so. But to what extent does their opinion matter?

In growing up, I have learnt to

not let the noise of others' opinions drown my own inner voice. And [even more] important, I [now] have the courage to follow my heart and intuition - they somehow already know what I truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

Steve Jobs Stanford 2005 commencement address - Go to 12:42 - 12:57 below:



Check out some highlights of the above speech in our post about living in 2010.

Speaking of knowing what we want to become, we invariably have lofty ambitions and grand schemes about what we'd like our lives to be in the future. We however rarely do anything to make such dreams and aspirations come true. They remain just that - dreams :(
In his book Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't, Jim Collins begins by stating a fundamental truth:

Good is the enemy of great.

The abundance of people, things and situations that are just good enough is the key reason why so little becomes great. Why break your back trying to make something great while good works just fine? In a recent post, a fellow freelancer dwelt on establishing the worth of services rendered by freelancers when they leave employment.

Our willingness to settle for and make do with what is good is a big problem. In so doing, we no longer push ourselves to the limit. We no longer go the extra mile, much less the requisite distance. We become too tolerant, we simply walk the already trodden path and never challenge convention.

How then, can we deal with this unfortunate situation?

I believe that each one of us needs to have more faith in him or herself. It is however equally important that such a firm faith in self be qualified by action.
Remember that the difference between ordinary and extraordinary is that "little" extra. Everyone needs to go the extra mile, deliver much more than what's required and unrelentingly go beyond expectations. Only then can we move from good to great.

In any case, it is the unexpected that changes our lives.

The Burden and Paradox of Choice

"So everywhere we look, big things and small things,
material things and lifestyle things,
life is a matter of choice."
- Barry Schwartz

Psychologist Barry Schwartz gave this insightful, yet funny talk at TED Global some years back.
This talk was recorded in July 2005 at the TED Global Conference in Oxford, England.



Highlights of this Talk:

• The Official dogma of all Western industrial societies.
  "If we are interested in maximizing the welfare of our citizens, the way to that is to maximize individual freedom. The reason for this is both that freedom is in and of itself good, valuable, worthwhile, essential to being human and because if people have freedom, then each of us can act on our own to do the things that will maximize our welfare and no one has to decide on our behalf."


• The way to maximize freedom is to maximize choice.


• The more choice people have, the more freedom they have and the more welfare they have.


• Too much choice produces paralysis rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all.


• Opportunity costs subtract from the satisfaction of what we choose even when what we choose is terrific. And the more options there are to consider, the more attractive features of these features are going to be reflected by us as opportunity cost.

Bottom Line

God gave us free will, and with it the burden of choice.

Following are some reasons why choice can make people miserable:

1. Regret and anticipated regret


2. Opportunity costs


3. Escalation of expectations


4. Self-blame

Watch and download the above Barry Schartz TED Talk here. Or directly download the video (zipped MP4, 64MB) here.

Let us learn, share and advance.