Expectations

It is a known fact that we as humans are a species that, by our very nature, thrive off instant gratification in nearly every situation. Some people, either through years of experience or just because of their personality, have adapted to be more patient. The rest of us, however, must be condemned to a life where we must have what we desire at that very moment, and of course we cannot; that’s just the way of the world.

It is simple really why the world is the way it is today, the world of instant satisfaction, humans are a very meticulous species. People didn’t like the time it took to walk somewhere, so the automobile was invented; people didn’t like the difficulty of communicating; now we have the cell phone over one hundred years after the godfather. So, by the very attitude of our ancestors, it is only natural that we crave instant satisfaction, since it is almost always available. But the flaw in this idea starts in our minds, in that people think that this gratification is owed to them, so they create expectations. Going into a task or an event with expectations can lead to an almost guaranteed failure, because the outcome will never be what we had anticipated. After failure, we strive even more for that sense of accomplishment, and when it does not come, accomplishment succumbs to frustration. After a while, you end up wanting something so bad based on the frustration, that what you were trying to achieve essentially loses its meaning, and the cycle ends up being repeated. And this could have all have been solved with one simple step, which could be a rule for living life: never place expectations on anything, without expectations, it’s impossible to fail.