expectations...

[limon]

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Barry Schwartz gave an interesting presentation called The Paradox of Choice at the TED conference. His argument is that greater choice leads to unreasonably high expectations, which subsequently leads to greater likelihood of disappointment. As one example, if you go to a grocery store to buy salad dressing and they only sell one, you'll buy it and expect that you might like it and you might not. You will probably not be disappointed by it because you had relatively low expectations. On the other hand, if you are choosing from among 175 different salad dressings and you choose just one, you have basically decided that you picked the absolute best salad dressing out of a very large population, which means that your expectations will be very high. Choice leads to unhappiness, by way of high expectations.

There is also a study that shows Denmark leads the Western world in terms of happiness and the reason is because Danes have low expectations.

BTW, TED conference talks are awesome. They're available as podcasts or on the ted website (www.ted.com). My favorite is the Hans Rosling presentation that uses statistics in the most compelling way I've ever seen.

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good reads. helped crystalize some of my thoughts.

[The Hag]

I'm not sure I fully agree with that, I mean, I have quite high expectations of people that are close to me, but in general my expectations of other people I don't know aren't much, I basically expect them all to be [censored].

But I'm happy, the people close to me know my expectations, and they aren't [censored] so it seems to be all good. In the past, people have [censored] me over and weren't up to my expectations so I no longer associated with them, this means I have few friends, but the ones I have are all great. Which is why I am happy. So I guess I agree with you on some of it.........

[The Hag]

[ QUOTE ]
limon,

A largely obvious observation here. I think wrt your specific point, it's a matter of having accurate expectations of people, rather than just having expectations. I have very low expectations of random people and very high expectations of my friends. I generally am not disappointed with people because I am a pretty good judge of people and my relationship with them, and set my expectations accordingly.

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This is much more articulate than my post, but thats basically what I was getting at.

[relativity_x]

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I always do my best thinking after rubbing one off.


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[Aloysius]

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There's confidence in yourself, which probably has a lot to do with how good you are at stuff, how good you look, etc. but also has a lot to do with attitude. Again, I don't think this is really that correlated with expectations because you have two sort of stereotypes of really confident people on totally opposite ends of the expectations spectrum--the guy who's constantly trying to improve himself and has confidence in himself because he works so hard and therefore succeeds a lot, and the guy who just sort of doesn't feel the need to prove himself. You also have types of people who have severe lacks of confidence on both sides of the expectation spectrum--people who never feel they've lived up to their own expectations, and people who are hopeless.

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I'd have to disagree, and believe that calibrating expectations optimally (ala Diablo's post), and handling disappointment when those expectations are not met with a degree of grace, is largely a function of self confidence.

I think people without a high level of confidence may be rattled when their expectations aren't met, because 1) it calls into question their reads on people; 2) something didn't get done, and now it's on them to execute.

Oh and I doubt that anyone truly has low expectations in most situations, I don't think that's possible.

-Al

[AZK]

I'm basically echoing diablo's sentiments...but after only living for 24 years, I've come to realize that life works out a lot better if you assume everyone around you is an idiot until proven otherwise, and expect nothing. Now, I'm not saying treat them like they are an idiot, but more often than not, this has made less than optimal situations tolerable. I realize this is a pretty hostile view of the world...

[Phat Mack]

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so today while i was taking a dump i was thinking about some people who are pissed at me (and unhappy in general)and wondering why they are the way they are and im the way i am. it seemed to boil down to expectations. the most sad disgruntled people i know have the most expectations of other people while the most happy carefree people i know have the least expectations of other people...is it this simple? (by expectations i mean unsolicited unagreed to expectations not the expectation that an explicit arrangement will be met)

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I'm not sure it's a matter of most or least expectations, I think it's more a matter of realistic vs. unrealistic.

The university I attended used to allow the students to bring their dogs to campus. During class periods, there would be several dogs hanging around the buildings waiting for their owners to come out. I remember one conversation between a campus cop and a co-ed, where the cop was telling her to tie up her dog since it was knocking over garbage cans. The co-ed insisted that her dog would never do anything "bad," such as knocking over garbage cans.

Of course, to a dog knocking over garbage isn't "bad," it's good. If he knocks over the can, he may get to eat some tasty garbage. The girl was projecting human values on the dog, an enterprise doomed to failure. This set me to thinking about the expectations humans place on each other.

Problems arise when we expect people to act in our best interests, their best interests, or even in a logical manner. Since then, I've considered us all a bunch of monkies trying to luck out, or stumble upon a banana, and I'm always pleasantly surprised when I find something more.

[Aloysius]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm basically echoing diablo's sentiments...but after only living for 24 years, I've come to realize that life works out a lot better if you assume everyone around you is an idiot until proven otherwise, and expect nothing. Now, I'm not saying treat them like they are an idiot, but more often than not, this has made less than optimal situations tolerable. I realize this is a pretty hostile view of the world...

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AZK - haha kinda grim I'd say, but also a good general rule. But, as I kind of mentioned above and you touch on, I think it's impossible to have low expectations all the time. It's natural for people to have average to higher expectations, especially as we get to know people and depend on them for stuff.

As Phat Mack noted I think it's really about learning to develop realistic expectations based on the person's behavior (I feel this is a big issue for some, where they are disappointed again and again by the same person).

The key though in my mind (if one believes we will not always have low expectations, but recognize that people are not perfect and screw up) is how we handle situations when our expectations are not met.

-Al

[fatgirl_lover]

limon i agree

[fatgirl_lover]

i think it's similar to the buddhist concept of not wanting anything. if you don't want anything then you are always happy wher eyou are with what you have