Are expectations a good or bad thing?
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Pandora (
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October 16th, 2022
I was wondering, if in some cases if people seem more miserable today than in the past. We expect children to study hard and make great grades and make a living making great money. Then there is the children’s version. Get educated and do their dream job that may or may not pay well but somehow they imagine they will have fine cars, fine homes, and live their dream. Then reality hits everyone and instead of feeling on top of the world, they get depressed. And the worse of it is that we all know someone who got what they wanted out of life, and you feel like a failure because it was attainable by someone you know.
So is it better to lower one’s expectations in the long run or do you just end up dimming your future with that frame of mind?
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9 Answers
I’m expecting to get better with my new medications and I am hopeful for a brighter future to be normal and live up to my potential. I want to be able to help others and I sure hope I will be able to do that! :)
Expectations are great! Charles Dickens said so.
Seriously… as an adult, expectations have proven to be disappointing. If you expect something good (wonderful, enjoyable, etc.) your expectations are likely to be dashed and you be disappointed.
My take (again, as an adult) is to expect the worst – have low expectations, and then be pleasantly surprised when (and if) things go well.
If I were in my 20s, I might think differently, but at this point, low expectations works for me.
Another name for expectations is dreams. Without dreams, we have no goals. Without any goals, life really has no meaning. Yes, expectations are a good thing. You just have to understand that your dreams may not be the same as someone else’s and that all dreams may be unattainable.
I think setting high goals is a good thing if you are willing to work very hard to reach then. Failure to reach a high goal can still leave you at a relatively high level of success which can open doors to other options.
When I was in college I had a dream of being a veterinarian. I worked hard but failed to get the grades I needed for vet school. But I had a BA in Zoology and just need a few more classes in clinical science to work in hospital labs. I’m no great success story but through hard work and making good decisions I managed to reach the upper middle class.
Also the more I learned about being a veterinarian, the more I realized that it was not a good match for me.
Success depends on expectations. Children’s parental expectations have much to do with their own academic success. Adults may have expectations from others but our own expectations for our own performance is a powerful thing.
Without expectations, how does one even begin to prepare for what they need to do? They’re not good or bad, they’re necessary.
Depends on the expectation. I really had any expectations of getting rich and then setting up with a woman to play house with kids and the proverbial white picker fence. I wanted a life of adventure.
At one point in the 70s, I was almost recruited by some clown who was trying to put together a team to go to Angola and fight insurgents. Or run guns to them anyway. I read later that yes, it was legit but his ‘team”, mostly Brits and Americans, were caught and executed by the insurgents. So it went from “On the Border” to “Our House is a Very Very Fine House” in short order. To put all this in musical terms. At times it’s better if expectations do fall flat.
Expectations backed-up by realistic goals and hard work are good. Expectations relying on luck alone…bad.
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