Kelly Crigger's Blog - Posts Tagged "expectations"
Be Careful What You Expect From Life
Listen up…come closer to the page…if there’s one area that all young people should be educated on, it’s this. Expectations cut several ways. People expect things of you and you expect things of them and when those expectations aren’t met we get disappointed, mad, violent, depressed, and build headless snowmen that horrify the neighborhood.
This is important. Put down your cocktail and pay attention. DON’T EVER over-inflate someone’s expectations. Manage them. If you tell your neighbor you can get Van Halen to play his kid’s graduation party and don’t come through, you’ll go from savior to goat in a nanosecond. “Under-promise and over-deliver” is a rule everyone should live by. Don’t promise jack shit unless you can deliver it and conversely don’t believe everyone else’s snake oil cure-alls and promises of Ponzi returns. Be skeptical of people so when they fail (and they will) it’s no big deal.
Example:
American McKayla Maroney was picked to win a gold medal HANDS DOWN in the event that she owned for several years leading up to the 2012 Olympics, the vault. So her expectations (and everyone’s really) were astronomically high going into the games right up until the moment that shit happened. She slipped and fell on the final attempt and got a silver medal. She accepted her silver like a curmudgeon; with a scowl and contempt.
But wait…anyone would kill for an Olympic silver medal right? Not her. Why? Because her expectations were higher. For the rest of her life she will look at something anyone else would be incredibly proud of with nothing but disgust, a reminder of her failure because her expectations were off. How sad.
Curmudgeons have low expectations in others and deservedly so. We’ve been duped, misled, and over-excited about a widget that sounded like the next great thing but turned into vapor. We’ve experienced loss and in turn have lost faith in people who over-promised so therefore we know that getting our hopes up is a bad idea that will likely end in disappointment. We keep our expectations of others low because we know the world will just let us down in the end more often than it will impress us.
So what about when we look inside? What do you do when your life doesn’t meet your own expectations or doesn’t even come close to them? Does anyone’s life meet their expectations? Probably, but it’s more an exception than a rule. So do the 95% of us who don’t do as well in life as we hoped to just wallow in self-pity in a dark room or do we keep trying to make our lives better?
On the one hand it’s human nature to be envious of what someone else has, but on the other hand, begrudging someone their success is petty. It can be devastating to look around and see other people achieving what you wanted to, especially when you have a friend who’s living your dream life. But so what if someone else did all the things you wanted to? That’s no reason to hate him for it.
Reason says we’re supposed to do the manly, right thing—suck it up, smile, say ‘I’m happy for you’ and move on. But we’re humans and we’re prone to those pesky emotions. We want to be the best or have the most, therefore the benevolent man is the one who overcomes his spite and says congratulations. Americans love to win but hate a winner. Someone else is leading a charmed life and we get jealous and want that charmed life ourselves. In reality we need to suck it up and build our own. In the end, if your life sucks then you have no one else to blame but yourself for making bad decisions or having unachievable expectations.
Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife
This is important. Put down your cocktail and pay attention. DON’T EVER over-inflate someone’s expectations. Manage them. If you tell your neighbor you can get Van Halen to play his kid’s graduation party and don’t come through, you’ll go from savior to goat in a nanosecond. “Under-promise and over-deliver” is a rule everyone should live by. Don’t promise jack shit unless you can deliver it and conversely don’t believe everyone else’s snake oil cure-alls and promises of Ponzi returns. Be skeptical of people so when they fail (and they will) it’s no big deal.
Example:
American McKayla Maroney was picked to win a gold medal HANDS DOWN in the event that she owned for several years leading up to the 2012 Olympics, the vault. So her expectations (and everyone’s really) were astronomically high going into the games right up until the moment that shit happened. She slipped and fell on the final attempt and got a silver medal. She accepted her silver like a curmudgeon; with a scowl and contempt.
But wait…anyone would kill for an Olympic silver medal right? Not her. Why? Because her expectations were higher. For the rest of her life she will look at something anyone else would be incredibly proud of with nothing but disgust, a reminder of her failure because her expectations were off. How sad.
Curmudgeons have low expectations in others and deservedly so. We’ve been duped, misled, and over-excited about a widget that sounded like the next great thing but turned into vapor. We’ve experienced loss and in turn have lost faith in people who over-promised so therefore we know that getting our hopes up is a bad idea that will likely end in disappointment. We keep our expectations of others low because we know the world will just let us down in the end more often than it will impress us.
So what about when we look inside? What do you do when your life doesn’t meet your own expectations or doesn’t even come close to them? Does anyone’s life meet their expectations? Probably, but it’s more an exception than a rule. So do the 95% of us who don’t do as well in life as we hoped to just wallow in self-pity in a dark room or do we keep trying to make our lives better?
On the one hand it’s human nature to be envious of what someone else has, but on the other hand, begrudging someone their success is petty. It can be devastating to look around and see other people achieving what you wanted to, especially when you have a friend who’s living your dream life. But so what if someone else did all the things you wanted to? That’s no reason to hate him for it.
Reason says we’re supposed to do the manly, right thing—suck it up, smile, say ‘I’m happy for you’ and move on. But we’re humans and we’re prone to those pesky emotions. We want to be the best or have the most, therefore the benevolent man is the one who overcomes his spite and says congratulations. Americans love to win but hate a winner. Someone else is leading a charmed life and we get jealous and want that charmed life ourselves. In reality we need to suck it up and build our own. In the end, if your life sucks then you have no one else to blame but yourself for making bad decisions or having unachievable expectations.
Curmudgeonism: A Surly Man's Guide to Midlife
