Yesterday night, I had a conversation about the danger of expectations. Our expectations about the (future) behaviour of other people often result in (our) disappointments. The less you expect from others, the less they can hurt you by not living up to your expectations about them.
Expectations are our assumptions about (the likelihood of) future events. Why? We must make assumptions because the available data / informations is always incomplete, often late, and sometimes even incorrect. This validity problem of data / information relates to the past (eg, our hypothesis), the present (our perception of reality), and/or the future (our expectations).
There is a distinction in expectations between others and yourself. This distinction is relevant because our expectations about others tend to hurt ourselves, while our expectations about ourself (ie, aspirations, ambition) are generally healthy. Unfortunately, this distinction between others and self is often ignored / neglected.
This neglect results in seemingly opposite views. Examples: 5 benefits of having no expectations, Why do we have expectations of others?, and Expectations: why you should have them. The 1st and 2nd article are about others while the 3rd article is about a focus on yourself.
It seems impossible – at least to me – to have an assumption about (the likelihood of) future events regarding our own behaviour (ie, our deeds, words, thoughts). Somehow, this goes against our notion of “free will”. Hence, ambition, aspirations, dreams, and/or goals are a much better way to describe “our expectations about ourself”.
Until today, I had never realised that aspirations, assumptions and expectations are derivatives of beliefs regarding the validity of Data / Information (eg, completeness, correctness, timeliness) – a.k.a. the Truth. The scope of my concept of the 7 Belief systems continues to surprise me.
I’m a Believer (1966) The Monkees
artists, lyrics, video, Wiki-1, Wiki-2
Note LO: all markings (bold, italic, underling) by LO unless stated otherwise
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