Anticipation is the act of expecting something and emotionally responding to its occurrence before it has occurred, euphemistically known as “counting your chickens before they hatch”.
One can anticipate an upcoming bad or upcoming good occurrence. And during that anticipation time one will feel either good or bad, “in anticipation”. If the occurrence turns out to be good, a mild catharsis takes place and if bad, a mild trauma takes place.
Catharses and traumas have a greater effect upon a mind than slowly building effects due to greater memory impact from the sudden contrast or change in sensation when the event actually takes place. And because they are remembered longer, they have a greater effect upon future subtle, intuitive decisions. Even though more good has occurred over a longer period of time, sudden bad events can yield the subconscious conclusion that more bad has occurred, and visa versa. This is a naturally occurring error of neural networks such as a brain.
Teasing hope with anticipation of positive events can have very negative effects if not done properly. If one arbitrary or randomly anticipates a good occurrence (eg. winning the lottery) disappointment will be the result far more often than not. With each disappointment, a mild trauma takes place and is remembered longer than the fewer wins.
This effect conditions or trains the mind to expect the worse concerning any and every type of anticipation of positive and a looming sense of negativity grows in the mind. That subtle sense of living in a negative environment causes the reaction of more desperately seeking greater hope with even greater anticipation. Greater risks are often taken yielding even greater disappointments. Self-confidence is lost and by the behavior feeding itself in such a way, addictions can be instilled favoring negative behaviors, such as risky gambling. Before long, the low self-confidence is justified.
So arbitrarily teasing hope with anticipation, trying to arbitrarily maintain a positive attitude, is generally not a good idea because random events will bring more negative effect than positive, making the effort even more difficult. It is much like teasing a dog. And the reverse, teasing depression, does not achieve the reverse effect, but rather simply maintains the belief that there really is no hope (over punishing the dog).
In order to build a positive attitude without the risk of causing the opposite, careful moderation of anticipation must be accepted. Most people do this instinctively and have little need to think about it. In general, one must take care to “not build hopes up to high” concerning any singular event, because the downfall of disappointment will be worse than the celebratory elation can compensate and if continued, will lead to general sustained negativity and possibly long term depression wherein there is little to no anticipation of hope accepted.
Treatment
To moderate ones anticipation, a reasonably sensed probability concerning upcoming occurrences must be learned and that takes time. If one only anticipates positive events before they actually do occur, a gradual sense of security and positiveness will become instilled.
Bipolar swings of mood, even manic-depression, is most often caused by biological interference of the neurology resulting in hormone instability, but can be treated and often overcome psychologically, depending on the severity of the neurological damage and the environment from which it invades.
What we call “intuition” is merely the brain’s natural statistics and probability calculator using its own natural and subtle form of unconscious mathematics. But in a very obfuscated environment, such as life in modern industrialized nations, the natural mind needs a little cognitive help. And that can be achieved by simply tracking ones moods so as to remind the mind of its own reactions day by day. The mind begins to see itself separate from the subtle causes of its reactions, its mood swings or sense of general good or bad. And from that tracking, the mind automatically begins to compensate as if to say, “Oh, this is just one of those things again. No need to worry or get too excited”.
Tracking ones moods is a bit tedious, but pretty simple merely by keeping a diary of feelings. The diary serves to bring attention to the positive and negative mood swings and their apparent causes. Simply by reviewing the diary, the mind automatically begins to compensate and sharp mood swings begin to calm and become more subtle. Eventually events that would have triggered serious anger or lust are automatically countered within the mind, yielding little or no reaction at all. The resultant effect is a much more stable, constant mood with only slight natural variations.
And along with the greater stability by such a means, comes the ability to choose a positive stability rather than negative. This too tends to be automatic.
After some experience with such a diary, a person can see the kinds of things that generally trigger good feelings, “smile events”, and when they most often occur. Thus the mind can learn to anticipate hope only when such triggers are highly probable. By practicing that anticipation rather than arbitrary positive anticipation, the general and subtle feeling of good becomes the normal sense of the person, because the person more greatly knows when to expect good or bad.
Don’t Be Afraid to Smile
Please realize that when I say “a smile event”, I am not talking about an event that necessarily inspires a literal smile, but rather merely events that can be appreciated, such as; the smell of coffee in the morning, the green on the trees, a sexy woman walking by, fresh morning air, the softness of bed sheets, the cleanliness of ones restroom, the reliability of the affection from a friend or love, the very low probability of actual threats going to or from work, the comfort of a particular chair, a favorite TV program, or even perhaps a day wherein something unexpectedly bad didn’t occur. Even the physical act of forcing a smile can trigger a mild feeling of joy. Look for reasons to smile, not reasons to avoid smiling.
As is often said, “Smile. It makes people wonder what you are up to”. In one anecdotal case, a man had come up nose-to-nose with me announcing, “I am going to fuck you up!”. I hesitated for a short moment then gently smiled and softly replied, “Yeah, probably”. He immediately displayed that he was perplexed by my reaction and lacked anything to say. That was just enough time for me to begin my explanation of why he should reconsider. Fortunately, he did reconsider and the possible violence was diverted.
In addition to creating a positive sense, the mind also automatically learns how to make wiser decisions and increase the number and type of things that bring joy and thus it begins to reinforce its own sense of security and positiveness. Rational positivity becomes the mind’s habit and addiction.
It doesn’t really matter how many things bring a sense of joy in the beginning as long as the smile events are tracked. Others will begin to appear. And eventually the mind will find that no matter how bad things seem to be or really are, it can always find a reason to feel good anyway simply because it can, without being deluded by a fantasy or attempting to inappropriately handle threatening situations. And as the feeling of security and hope grows, known bad habits or addictions become much easier to simply decide to stop. One learn how to think to himself, “I don’t HAVE to feel bad, regardless of this event” because feeling bad usually only makes things worse.
Thus I advise people to keep a “diary of their smiles”. Each day estimate about how much time was spent smiling (or just feeling good), even if that is a very low figure. And along with the time record, record what the apparent immediate cause could have been, understanding it to be simply a guess. It would also be good to keep the same kind of record regarding bad feelings and their probable causes.
If such a record is kept long enough (perhaps a year or few), even a seriously depressed or manic-depressive person can change themselves into what would seem a saint of positive attitude, “the smiling Buddha”. Of course in a world filled with desperation to feel good immediately along with convenient means to do so regardless of their consequences, such a tedious task might be difficult to maintain. But there are subtle ways to more greatly inspire that discipline also.
In Summery
The inherent purpose of every life is to gain the greatest degree of feeling good (“joy”) for the longest amount of time (the very inspiration of the concepts of Eternal Heaven and Hell). As society or nature becomes more complex, such a task easily overwhelms the mind and thus most creatures do not do it well. They either do what feels good immediately at the sacrifice of longevity, or sacrifice their joy for sake of greater longevity. The best balance is not easily discerned. Man, having a cognitive ability unknown to other creatures, has the opportunity to rise above the confusion simply by understanding the goal, the Integral of Joy Over Time, IJOT, and how to help his own mind and life toward that goal. Keeping a “Diary of Joy” is one simple means that other creatures haven’t the ability to do.
Just gotta poke a rib donchya.
