Fallton Havenstonne

A lot could be said about expectations, but the one aspect I wanted to focus on is when what we imagine is worse than what actually happens. The flip side to that, of course, is when what we imagine is far better than what actually happens.

In both cases, our expectations of an upcoming event are different from reality. Our expectations are not there to change reality, but to prepare our mindset (and choices) for what’s to come. For example, if we imagine that something negative is going to happen, we go into that situation knowing that we have to be ready for how challenging and difficult it might be. And if we imagine that something positive is going to happen, we go into the situation with high hopes (or expecting a good outcome).

But when the opposite occurs, it upsets the balance of our assumptions and beliefs. It’s like when we’re about to take an exam, and it turns out to be easier than we expected, we wonder why we thought it would be hard in the first place. We might ask ourselves: why did we doubt ourselves? What was it that made us think it would be hard? Was it because of the last test (which we did poorly on), or was it because we felt like we didn’t understand the material?

If we’re about to take an exam, thinking that it will be easy, but in fact, it’s much harder than we thought, we would wonder why we thought the opposite. Perhaps the last test was easy, or maybe we were overconfident in our understanding of the material. When such things happen, we begin to question our expectations–if what we imagine can ever truly prepare us for what lies ahead.

It would be apt to say that our expectations are more like approximations–a hypothesis of will happen. From our catalogue of experiences, we can reason the conclusions that will follow given certain conditions and circumstances. But there’s always a margin of error to our approximations, since we don’t know all the variables–all the minute and subtle changes that can occur (i.e. the weather, the choices people make, the conditions of the environment, etc.). More than that, we don’t have a crystal ball, and no matter how hard we try to approximate an event given everything we know, there’s always a chance that we could be wrong. Besides, we’re only human.

In this post, I will focus on two types of goals: personal goals, and monetary goals.

Personal goals focus on things we want to work on and accomplish for our own fulfillment. They can be things like learning a new skillset, learning a new language, reading x number of books a year, getting enough sleep a day, trying a new recipe, exercising, etc.

Monetary goals focus on our finances, such as how much we want to save, how much we want to earn, what to cut back on, creating a budget, etc. But there is a clear difference between the two goals, and that is in how they cultivate certain habits in order to achieve the desired goals.

Personal goals develop habits that aren’t necessarily attached to finances, although they can. Personal goals can span a broad range of things, such as our health, to educational and creative pursuits. For example, if we make it a goal to learn a subject, such as history, the purpose isn’t to get a monetary prize or a reward, but to gain knowledge and understanding about the past. And if our goal is to make a painting to hang in the living room, the goal is to decorate our living space, not to earn money from it.

In contrast, monetary goals focus on how to wisely manage our wealth. In having monetary goals, we become disciplined about our spending, as well as in increasing our wealth by earning more or having more income streams. While these goals can certainly increase the size of our wallet, they have little to do with making us well-rounded and creative. Instead, monetary goals are about making sure that we’re financially secure (i.e. have enough to cover an unexpected emergency, have enough saved up for the future, etc.).

Both types of goals have their benefits, but they focus on different aspects of our lives. One focuses on things that are personally valuable to us, whereas the other focuses on our financial wellbeing. But the challenge is in balancing the two. Our personal goals sometimes want to take up more time than our monetary goals allow, and vice versa. When we work day and night, we put our personal goals to the way side. But if the time (or money) we spend on our personal goals negatively affects our monetary goals, then that can affect our budget and our financial future.

In finding the right balance between personal and monetary goals, we can satisfy both. Of course, the right balance is different for everyone, since each person has their own personal and monetary goals. But once we find the right balance, we don’t allow one type of goal to outweigh the other, but rather, we acknowledge that each type is a benefit to us.

There are days when things just seem like they’ve gone haywire. It’s like a perfect storm has arrived, and there’s a succession of delays and setbacks that complicate our lives and prevent us from getting anything done.

On those type of days, it’s as if order and logic have gone out the window. Even if we had everything planned, it’ll all get disrupted by things we had overlooked, miscalculated, or hadn’t foreseen.

When things are off, the only viable solution is to adapt, or to have a plan B. But a plan B can only exist if we had been in this snafu before. And if we hadn’t, well . . .

Once the day is over, we might ask ourselves: how did this happen? Why did things go wrong? Sometimes there’s no explanation for it, because everything was too random and unpredictable to make sense of. Or maybe there is an explanation, but we can’t understand it now, since it was one of those things that will make sense to us later in life.

There are things we can take away from a day that’s off. It can be seen as a test of our character–how well we respond under pressure or when things get tough. Some people might look at the bright side–find the humor and absurdity in it. Or it can be that when things are off, that’s just part of life, and we must face it head on.

When we can’t think clearly, it can be frustrating and stagnating, since it’s like being lost somewhere in a foggy forest, not knowing where to go. We can’t see ahead–can’t see the path that will take us to where we want to go. With the path obscured by the fog, we can’t make progress–can’t see our way out.

This can be due to exhaustion, tiredness, or simply being overwhelmed. It’s like there’s no clarity in the organization of our ideas and our perceptions. The ideas have been blown by the wind, hidden in clouds of confusion, and our perceptions are going in and out as we try to make sense of our surroundings.

To other people, they might wonder why we can’t focus or function well when we seem fine on the outside. It’s not that we’re functioning inefficiently on purpose, but at the moment, nothing seems to make sense. Our perceptions and ideas have become cluttered and mixed up in a sort of rhythmless and inharmonious song and dance.

Everything is a blur, and all we want, before we can do anything productive or creative, is to clear up the fogginess, get our mental lens cleaned of blemishes so that it can be focused. Without which, we are just adrift–moving about the forest like a leaf in the wind–instead of on a path of our choosing.

It can be frustrating to feel like we’ve made no traction toward our goals. It’s as if we’re just spinning our wheels, stuck in the same place. No matter how hard we try, we’re not making any improvements–not inching closer to where we want to be.

Whenever I feel this way, I do one of two things. Either I keep doing what I’m doing, or I’ll try something new. To keep doing what I’m doing, it’s like I’m saying to myself: I’m not going to give up. I’m going to keep trying until I make headway. When I try something new, it’s like I’m stepping outside of what I’m used to doing–thinking outside the box. This will lead me to venture out into the unknown–to experiment with new ideas, concepts, and themes.

The first requires patience, and the second, innovation. Progress seems to be a struggle where we must balance between the two. If we have too much patience and we’re not seeing any progress, it could mean that we’re not challenging ourselves enough with new ideas. If we’re constantly trying to innovate and we’re not seeing any progress, it can mean that we’re not trying something long enough to see how it will pan out (i.e. we’re not giving it enough time to grow).

But when we do finally make traction, we can finally celebrate, since it was a long road to get there. And for a time, things are well . . . until we lose traction again. Then that feeling of frustration will start to fester, and we’ll have to stop and think to ourselves: do we keep doing what we’re doing, or do we try something new?

There were times at school when I’d stare at the board absentmindedly, not cognizant of what was going on, but rather, giving the appearance that I was paying attention. It’s something that has occurred less as I’ve grown older, but it does happen from time to time.

In hindsight, I could attribute it to boredom, or that I was more interested in other subjects like art and P.E. There is a window of time when I can really focus and pay attention, but after that window closes, it becomes a struggle to stay alert. It’s not that I don’t want to pay attention, but everything I’m hearing and seeing isn’t registering in my brain like it used to. In other words, nothing is sinking in, and I’m just a body–sitting there and waiting for the class to be over.

Nowadays, things are different. I’m more intentional with my time, and I use my time purposefully (i.e. to work on projects, to finish chores, to run errands, etc.). I might become absentminded if I’m waiting in a long line at a store, or if I’m extremely tired, but given how fast pace everything is, I’m usually thinking about the next errand I have to do–or the next project I’m working on.

Overall, I think the difference between myself now and when I was young is that in my youth, I felt like I had all the time in the world–like there was an infinite supply of it–whereas now, I know it’s dwindling with each day that passes, and I have to make the best of each day before time runs out.

The one thing I enjoy about reading is that it gives me a bit of quiet–that solitary experience of being directly engaged with a work where silence is necessary. During the day, we can be busy with a lot of things–things like running errands, talking on the phone, doing chores, etc. And if we spend our time relaxing by watching TV, listening to music, or playing games on our cellphones or on the computer, these activities busy the mind–grab our attention–rather than let our imagination run free.

But reading is something different because it requires silence to focus on the text. It’s an activity that requires continuous and intense concentration–one which can abruptly end if a single distraction or noise intrudes upon our reading session. Thus, it’s hard to read when there’s noise or music playing in the background, or if people are talking nearby. With reading, it’s as if we can only focus on one thing at a time. It’s not just words that we’re reading, but the ideas and scenes that those words generate that we must extrapolate to turn into something meaningful and coherent to us.

In essence, we’re trying to reach a sort of agreement with the author–one in which our interpretation of their words are the same with what we believe their interpretation of them is supposed to be. Even though there is no direct communication between us and the author, we trust that their ideas can be received and understood by us if we can follow what they’ve written: the chain of their logic, the scenes that they’re describing, the emotions that they’re conveying, the sequence of events that they’ve laid out, etc.

This process of interpretation and agreement between the author and the reader is one that is continuous and imperfect, since there can be confusion when something is unclear, or if a bit of information is missing. And because the reader is trying to comprehend, as closely as possible, what the author is saying (without error, of course), it requires intense concentration and imagination. Therefore, it’s an activity where noise and sound can be the difference between understanding the text, and not understanding it at all.

When I overanalyze something, I reach a desert like impasse. Meaning I’ve reached a point where I can go in whichever direction I’d like, although I won’t know where I’m going–or if it’s the right one.

Over analyzing a situation can lead us to question every facet of a topic or a situation. It’s like every road leads to a dead end, because we can see the flaws in every road. Nothing seems viable, so we’re stuck at an impasse.

When I used to take tests in school, there’d be multiple choice questions with a, b, c, d, with the additional choice of a and c, or a, b, and c, or all of the above. There’d be times when I’d reach the conclusion that any of the options could be valid–depending on how each is looked at. Often times, it was the wording that threw me off, or the answer choices being half true or equivocal in meaning. Or it could be that the answer hinged on what was meant by a certain word, or the context it was meant to be in.

Strangely enough, I heard from one of my teachers that your first choice was often the right one, and that when you overanalyze something (or pick your second choice), it was wrong. I’m not sure if I agree with it 100%, but I do understand the rationale behind it. Our first choice is based on our intuition, and our second choice is based more on our analysis of the options. There are merits to both, but our intuition isn’t 100% right, and neither is our analysis of the options.

At some point, we must concede that we’re making a risk by the choice(s) we make (if it’s a question that’s unclear or dubious). There is a probability that we could end up being right or wrong by our choice, and won’t know until we’ve made it. But if we choose to remain at an impasse, we will certainly not know which it was.