expectation - a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future - as defined by my little widget on my mac.
before i go off on a super tangent i'll try to at least begin my rant with some sort of foundation. what is greater in emotional magnitude, losing $100 or gaining $100? getting a new car, or totaling your new car b/c of your own fault and not getting a penny from insurance? i believe that the negatives in life are more powerful than the positives.
if we can quantify emotions, let us pretend that we agree that when you lose $100, your emotional point system will decrease by 3 points; however, when you gain $100, you only gain 2 emotional points. thus, if the events have equal chances, u're expected to be left off less happy, or emotionally negative. you will be emotionally negative if u were to add up ur emotional points from an equal but opposite action/result such as the ones mentioned above.
the very idea of an expectation means that you think that it is more likely something will happen versus it not happening. so when it does happen, u're not at all surprised. u're satisfied, ur expectations have been met as anticipated. however, when ur expectations are not met, you are dissatisfied, unhappy, disappointed, etc. much like above, you're emotionally negative. yet, as stated above, if we were to quantify both end results, the positive side of meeting your expectations are less than the effect of the negative side of disappointment. thus, having expectations is a losing way to life. we can generalize expectations to hope, faith, beliefs, etc.
my point is, it's better to not expect anything at all simply b/c disappointment cannot be offset by another expectation being met. it's better to not expect, not hope, not believe anything and take life as it comes. this way, all the good in life is a pleasant surprise. and well, expecting the worse and then the worse happening, it's nothing surprising.
expectations, hopes, promises, beliefs, etc, their true power is only realized when they're not met, violated, broken... it's only then we understand how foolish we were, through the stupidity and naivety of it all. so again, better off taking life as it comes. the less u expect, the less disappointment, the more positive surprises.
furthermore, some people will feel safer with their expectations when a certain outcome becomes more consistent and more reliable e.g. every time you turn the key to your car it starts. the more it happens the more confident you become that it will start. you now have the expectation that your car will start tomorrow. that is a total fallacy. it doesn't take a math major to understand the idea of regression to the mean. with any event, there is an average amount of times something is supposed to happen or some sort of probability attributed to it. therefore, the more something happens, provided each event is not completely independent, the more likely the event will not occur.
so to tie the two parts of this blog together i'll say again that two equal but opposite effects have a net negative emotional impact on your well-being. having expectations will make it even worse, since expectations automatically begin you on the positive emotional scale. b/c expectations exhibit their true power when not met, your emotional well-being is far worse off by having expectations.
no expectations, no disappointment.
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read more at http://timsalterego.blogspot.com/
28.8.08
on ignorance
overslept today so here i am sitting at home and not working. what better thing to kill time than to write useless information that is pertinent only to me but perhaps entertaining to the 3 people that mite read this? lovely. now that i have that straight, lets continue to what's on my mind.
a little while ago i was writing a letter to a friend on ignorance. is ignorance really bliss? my answer has definitely changed in the past few days after finishing Fooled by Randomness by N. N. Taleb. commentary on this book deserves another post. anyways, some people argue that ignorance is not bliss, and it's more of a 'fooling yourself' mentality by allowing yourself to be ignorant. i beg to differ.
if instead of being ignorant to some things, you spend your time being consumed by trying to understand this or that, trying to find the truth or the minutiae of whatever situation, then how could you possibly live a fulfilling life? questioning things simply b/c you will not allow some ignorance in your life seems too much of a hassle.
rather, why not accept this: no one is perfect. no one is infallible. it is our human nature to be selfish and to do otherwise is probably from social pressures rather than survival methods. that said, can u then be surprised that things aren't always what they seem? look, i'm not saying that everyone is a deceitful asshole and don't trust anyone. i'm saying, why care so much if in the end the details don't really matter?
if you can subscribe to the idea that nobody is perfect, then ignorance is bliss. i suppose, though, until u spend ur time trying to find the minutiae of it all, u cannot figure out that ignorance is bliss.
however, you cannot be ignorant to the fact that nobody is perfect. you might as well do drugs all the time and never return to reality.
but why is it okay to be ignorant? sure, nobody is perfect. that doesn't mean there can't be people perfect for you. that doesn't mean that you can't have great friends. ignorance is sort of like a filtration system. all that nonsense that crosses your path is nothing more than nonsense. all those high strung fools that make nothing into something and something in to everything, well, they'll just implode one day.
cheers.
a little while ago i was writing a letter to a friend on ignorance. is ignorance really bliss? my answer has definitely changed in the past few days after finishing Fooled by Randomness by N. N. Taleb. commentary on this book deserves another post. anyways, some people argue that ignorance is not bliss, and it's more of a 'fooling yourself' mentality by allowing yourself to be ignorant. i beg to differ.
if instead of being ignorant to some things, you spend your time being consumed by trying to understand this or that, trying to find the truth or the minutiae of whatever situation, then how could you possibly live a fulfilling life? questioning things simply b/c you will not allow some ignorance in your life seems too much of a hassle.
rather, why not accept this: no one is perfect. no one is infallible. it is our human nature to be selfish and to do otherwise is probably from social pressures rather than survival methods. that said, can u then be surprised that things aren't always what they seem? look, i'm not saying that everyone is a deceitful asshole and don't trust anyone. i'm saying, why care so much if in the end the details don't really matter?
if you can subscribe to the idea that nobody is perfect, then ignorance is bliss. i suppose, though, until u spend ur time trying to find the minutiae of it all, u cannot figure out that ignorance is bliss.
however, you cannot be ignorant to the fact that nobody is perfect. you might as well do drugs all the time and never return to reality.
but why is it okay to be ignorant? sure, nobody is perfect. that doesn't mean there can't be people perfect for you. that doesn't mean that you can't have great friends. ignorance is sort of like a filtration system. all that nonsense that crosses your path is nothing more than nonsense. all those high strung fools that make nothing into something and something in to everything, well, they'll just implode one day.
cheers.
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