Which one is better; High Expectations or Low Expectations?

Before I start with it, we all would definitely agree that we all tend to have personal expectations prompt by everything that we do in our daily lives. Whether if it’s a high or low one, one can always be sure to have a certain amount of belief that something will happen or be the case in the future when it comes to the work that it has put in doing a task that needs accomplishing. But the question is that, would it be better to have these personal expectations placed on a really high bar (meaning, to have high expectations all the time), or to have lower expectations than what the usual would be just to be on the safe side?

Well, there are three ways of overcoming this complex question which required me to discuss with my peers to acquire some knowledge of how people would generally assume having expectations are to them. Keep in mind that these points given aren’t routed to what’s right or what’s wrong for it is based on the self-reasoning of you – just as how I can achieve these explanations too. So without further a due, I’ll start off with my first answer to the question.

1)    Having High Expectations All The Time Isn’t A Bad Idea

For most people, they would love to expect the ever outcome to be of a positive side; to be optimistic to the bitter end. As for, the saying goes, “Aim for the moon; even if you miss you’ll land among the stars”. Always aiming high would benefit your way more in terms of securing your goals because it would tend to motivate you to do your best so that you can have those expectations fulfilled. In an odd chance that you don’t really get what you want, from the experiences of working towards what you get, you basically win at least something in the process of workings towards earning your desired outcome. Optimism for most people would play an important key role in defining achievements in future events. Low expectations will never fund towards a goal oriented outcome as it tells the mind of the person who is making very negative pre-based assumptions before the outcome and ending up not working for it for the prospect would probably have given up completely. Low expectations would probably also backfire into giving really good outcomes, but that’s rarely the case. Evidently, optimism runs in the person’s mind into doing things in a well organized and thoughtful manner, thus giving their 100% to in achieve that target that has been set in order to acquire the desired outcome. Hence, high expectations make you work for it unknowingly since it gives you the courage and confidence to do what needs to be done mentally training you that you will definitely achieve the outcome that you have expected.

2)    Accepting Reality of Things Based On Circumstances

Being optimistic when it comes to expecting outcomes that are fruitful is really an admirable trait, one can wonder what if we just try to accept that sometimes based on what work we have done and what are the events that require expectations, we should really be taking a step back and realising what reality is. Sometimes based on the circumstances, a prospect is well enough to make judgements on expectations based on the odds of what should happen and what shouldn’t. For example, if you were to study every day 2 months before a test, then chances are you would be ready to sit in it and you would naturally expect a higher outcome of the results – you would maybe even be confident enough to say that you are pretty sure that you’ve scored an A on that paper. However; if you were to not be prepared at all based on the number of times you’ve skipped class, procrastinated on studying, and simply rushing through notes the day before the test itself (which some of us do frequently),  the possibility that you would not have the confidence to tell yourself that you did well in that test is pretty slim; and if there is a small chance that somehow you made it through and you did manage to obtain a really good grade from the test then you’re in a state of relief because your expectations were low to begin with and you have place yourself into the phase of reality by accepting your fate in terms of how you weren’t prepared for the work that needs to be put out. Hence, you have a lower expectation of the future outcome.

 

3)    Not Having Expectations At All

Sometimes, on situations that you have undergone through your life, expectations would eventually kill you, but the same time it does also tend to overshoot your goals. So for that reason alone, it's best that to say that it is justifiable to not have expectations when events that portray themselves to be not worth the expectation address themselves. A perfect example would be, buying a lottery ticket. You usually would buy it for the expense that maybe for the odd chance that luck passes your way; you would be able to win the lottery and collect your prize. But when you start buying more and more of it each day, you tend to not expect it any longer as it becomes a routine thing to buy the ticket without having the expectation of having to win it. Maybe you win, maybe you won’t – but either way, you’re extremely fine with it regardless what the circumstances are.

Not the best example? Try imagining this; you’re helping this man find his wallet that he is so frantically searching for and has requested your help to search for it. Naturally, you want to help the guy because he is probably desperate in wanting to use to cash for his daily expenses and probably would need all the details that are in the wallet to get through his day. So, you share his concerns and you walk around and search for this guy’s wallet and you finally found it and return to this guy that was really very happy to have found it. He thanks you for your kindness and he offers you a small fortune for the deed that you have committed. 
At this point, you have a choice to either accept it or not for it don’t matter. The point is that when you made that decision to help this man, you would not hesitate to help him because of the moral consciousness that you have within you have led you to believe that helping this man is the morally obligated thing to do as you share his loss of losing something that’s worth a lot. 
Hence, you made a decision without a care about expectations and see through it that you will accomplish this goal of finding this man’s wallet. It doesn’t matter if you have a reward or you found that wallet at the end of the day – the fact that you took the time and made the effort to help this man is more than enough to know that the effort made is worthwhile because it shows that you care (but yeah, just please find the damn wallet as much as you can. You can let random people get their hands on important and vital information like Identification Cards and Credit Cards. People are really evil so to speak.  ) 

The Verdict

So the borderline is that there isn’t something called “the best solution” when it comes to having expectations (or not). I guess we all need to learn from the situations that we go through and try to work on the facts on situations that deserve certain expectations, and situations that don’t.

From what we went through so far, we know that certain situations wouldn’t have the same type of outcomes as other situations if applied the same type of expectations.

The option that’s the “best of it all” out of everything mentioned is entirely up to you. Just know that it is best to think that if there is an expectation that is given, it is based from what you think about it based on yourself as appropriated to celebrate the amount of effort that you’ve put in order to achieve desired expectations.

Put in the effort, yeah?

Laters.