I read this a while ago, but don’t recall the source. The book said that unhappiness is the result of expectations being too high, and likened it to the mathematical principle of the limit as the denominator of a fraction approaches zero. Lower your expectations, and you effectively achieve infinity, just as the graph of the limit as x->0 of 1/x is a vertical asymptote that increases with no end. What do you think?
It’s sort of a cool ancedote but I mean, happiness isn’t quantifiable.
What you’re talking about here is bordering on Bentham’s utilitarian calculus which is essentially laughable.
Low expectations means less frustration, less motivation, IMO.
Setting yourself in a lower and more comfortable gear.
It’s a nice idea, but like all ideas you have to be careful.
Lower expectations can mean that you experience lower amounts of disappointment from missing said expectations, but also you potentially miss on high yield results as well.
High expectations can drive one to try and fulfill those. And when they do they receive high benefits. Low expectations can also equate to low benefits.
Put it this way. Say you consistently achieve low expectations. You could, in potentia, receive a lot of mild happiness at this. Say you occasionally achieve high expectations, you could, in potentia, receive peaks of great happiness at having acheived something difficult.
I think the key is the have moderate expectations in a lot of things and high expectations in certain areas where you have more influence or ability to achieve those expectations. You don’t want to reserve your high expectations to areas where it would be nearly impossible to achieve them. Have a few low expectations in areas where luck is the driving factor and you have little to no direct influence on the outcome.
Disappointment can be motivational, so don’t eliminate it, but try to maximize the happiness that can be gained from each activity by giving it an expectation level that is reasonable for your direct ability to achieve it.
Of course, if you expect to do nothing then anything you do is considered an achievement. You see, people don’t expect corpses to start digging themselves up and walking about scaring milkmen and paperboys. Or robots to say ‘I love you’ like that little boy in that movie. I look forward to the day when robots have emotions like us, I’m going to torture them and produce legal snuff movies…
I don’t get how someone can truly lower their expectations. We’ve all got what we want, and how badly we want it, and I can’t see how we can change this. It’s essentially the same problem as free will.
Say I want X, but decide the best I can get is X – d, so I can either go for X or X – d. If I aim for X and get X – d, then I’m mildly pleased. If I aim for X – d and get it, then I get the same pleasure as before plus a bit of extra pleasure from having met my target. However, this little bonus is cancelled out by the knowledge that the –d factor was introduced in the first place, so the two outcomes are essentially the same.
What if your lowest expectation was to higher your expectations?
That is part of the difference though. These are not the same for every person.
If you aim for X and get X-d some people will not even be mildly pleased. All they can feel is the disappointment of not getting X. However, if they aim for X-d and get it, they will experience the pleasure of achieving their goal. It may not be X, but they may gain the perspective and insight to achieve X next time (assuming next time is possible) or maybe they can get to X-a which is closer to actual X.
And I think it may help to qualify this as a possibility of learning to expect differently. Where it comes to be that in a situation where X would be optimal, you automatically aim for X-a. This becomes your perception and thus you never aimed for X in the first place. You knew that in your current state X would only lead to abject failure, so why commit yourself to abject failure? You can just aim a little short at X-a and get it and have all the happiness.
Yes, it’s true that there are all-or-nothing people out there, but with these people the pleasure boost comes from the target itself, not the thing that’s being targetted, and the latter is what I was talking about.
And you’re also right about people aiming for the top and knowing that they won’t get there (like middle-ability athletes in tournaments, who certainly don’t play to lose), but here I think the original target is more psycological than literal.
(SilentSoliloguy - give me a few days to get my head round that!)
Oh I agree. It will be different for each person as they have to gauge their ability to deal with meeting or not meeting expectations.
However, one thing pointed out by Dan I think is true. I think people with continually lower expectations also have problems with motivation as they only aim to reach what they can already reach and do not push themselves to be better than they currently are.
This is why I’m for moderate expectations. Have high ones in areas where you know you can push yourself and you’ll be happy to get as close as possible if you don’t make it. But for those insecure areas where failure, any failure, may be harmful, aim just above what you know you can do. Push for that little extra and work up slowly.
Sounds good to me 