The other day while on set and shooting the shit with my camera guy he made a comment about how he's glad I have no expectations of him. He seemed perfectly content with the fact too. At the time I didn't pay much attention to it (bigger fish and all at the time) but now days later its coming back to visit my brain and I'm not sure why.
I started to wonder if I even had expectations for anyone these days… who am I kidding, I started wondering if I ever had legitimate expectations for anyone. Even the word sounds so big and full of commitment. Am I weird? Oh Mr. Google search!
Off I went prowling through thesis papers, trying to figure out if I was crazy, unique or something else. What I found was a couple of things about happiness coming from low expectations, but the best thing I found was a quote by Nick Blevins:
"Unspoken expectations lead to frustration. Especially in a marriage, but really in any relationship or team. As leaders we should make our expectations clear for the people we lead."
I’m not sure its unspoken expectations but just the expectations in general. The Danes are supposedly the happiest people on the planet but they are supposedly the people with the lowest expectations as well! So, what the hell! Danes seem to agree with my idea but seem to put it into a life practice.
Expectations kill happiness.
Which would explain why the rest of the world is so sticking unhappy. A study done by the University of Chicago’s sociologists found that we grow happier as we grow older.
Why?
--More security?
--Better jobs?
--More control over our lives?
Nope! The study doesn’t believe that, and technically neither do I. According to the study older people tend to have lower aspirations or, to put it in a more positive way, greater acceptance of the way things are. A similar study pointed out that women are less happy today than they were in the 1970s, despite the great strides they’ve made in the workplace. Why would that be? Well, its simple. Now a woman can be anything she wants to be, so when all she amounts to is the 1950s ideal (I.e. wife and a mother) she is left with a feeling of failure.
Part of me doesn't believe that having no expectations would make me happier, but maybe that's because I expect a lot of myself? That I don't trust the world around me to live up to the expectations I once set down for it. Expecting failure, lack of action, or to put it simply NOTHING means you aren't disappointed when NOTHING happens and pleasantly surprised when MORE happens. Maybe my subconscious knew that before my conscience and that's why I have "no expectations" of the world and people around me
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