My last post was on expectations. I’ve learned something interesting about expectations…
Experience sets the right expectations.
I think this is because when you gain experience in something, you start to learn what is there in that domain, so you come to expect it. And then, your expectations, which come from direct experience, are more in alignment with actual reality, so your expectations are more likely to be met. And if they’re not met, then you’re likely close, and hence become more emotionally stable. This is because your disappointments won’t be too harsh, and your pleasant surprises won’t be too wild.
This is a good thing to remind myself of. Because I’m usually crippled by invisible forces, which I sometimes later realize were high expectations. To remind myself that the proper expectations come from experience is very liberating. It allows me to go out there and do something and gain experience and learn. Which stabilizes my emotions as it teaches me the right things to expect.
Maybe the more important lesson is that maybe some of us expect that our issue of expectations cannot be altered in any way. This is a meta-expectation problem. As I have reminded myself, and lived by the fact, that direct experience sets the right expectations, I have slowly learned to expect that my expectations can actually be altered. Which is not something we naturally just know.
Many of us have learned that we cannot change our expectations, and have learned that what we expect is reality itself. But not necessarily.
This thing might be obvious intellectually. But the moments you need to remind yourself of them, are the moments you have forgotten them and are acting by the assumption of your expectations. The assumption that your expectation is true. Which isn’t necessarily true, but in those moments you don’t consider the possibility that they’re not. And those are the moments where it matters most to remember that experience will set your expectations properly.
The Mshary 