Expect Disappointment and You'll Never Be Disappointed
But wait, there's more to it...
I bet with my next paycheque that you’ve defo heard the saying before… or something similar. I was made aware of such view on expectation through none other than Marvel’s No Way Home. I must be frank, I absorbed it like a brand new sponge.
It may sound very pessimistic, however, like I have mentioned in the sub-headings, there’s more to it! Although, I must warn you to take this view with a grain of salt—you’ve been warned. Sure, it may come across as defeatist or any other negativity you might stick into someone; but has it ever occurred to you that by expecting disappointment, you’re disconnecting yourself to the bitter feeling as a product of your expectation? For example, if you’re expecting something great to happen to you, it can only end in two ways: you’d feel amazing, like all existing Australian bugs on the first day of Spring, for when it actually comes; or in contrast, you’d feel obliterated, betrayed, etc. It’ll be the same number of outcomes when you’re expecting disappointment, with a twist: you’d feel casual when disappointment does actually happen (hopefully not always) and if anything, you’d think you have a psychic ability; or you’d feel an unexpected happiness when it ends the other way. Did you get the comparison there? By realising the imperfection, even in our perceived situation, you are saving yourself from getting caught in the emotional fallout.
“Expect disappointment and you’ll never be disappointed”
Truthfully, my interest was never about the feeling as a byproduct of your own expectation, but rather the mental block you’re creating by expecting disappointment. In a paradoxical truth of expecting a disappointment, subconsciously, a human being would try anything within their will to avoid being disappointed—failure. That said, you’ll begin to think about the possible obstacles, snafus, and bitterness from failing when expecting disappointment. Thus, it jogs ourselves to approach the situation with solutions, resilience, and agility. We then could accept the situations as they are, not as what we wished they were. After all, we can only focus on the things we can control, no? Arrivederci.