Dealing with Our Expectations

Bob Schwaar
August 10, 2008
Palo Alto, CA

UUCPA has had a long tradition of filling the pulpit during the Ministers’ summer vacations with outside speakers, even lay speakers. I’m honored to appear here today.

I am especially humbled to be following Sunday sermons by Kurt Kuhwald. During the last month, Rev. Kurt has given us some of his finest, most thought-provoking sermons, and we are grateful for them.

Next week our regular Parish Minister, Reverend Amy, will be back in the pulpit. I’m sure that she will have many insights gained from her recent experiences to share with us.

Today, in this transitional period, I will share some of my thoughts with you, along with some thoughts of others that I have gathered.

Winston Churchill once said,

There are three difficult things to do:

To climb a ladder that is leaning toward you,

To kiss a girl who is leaning away from you, and

To stand up on your two feet and address an audience.

At our Sunday Morning Forum on March 2 of this year, Peggy Marks led a discussion entitled “What do You Expect out of Life?” I’ve thought about it a lot since then, and here are some of my thoughts on the matter:

Humans think a lot about the future.

Expectations are one way in which we think about the future.

We have anticipations and desires. We make predictions. And that is how we build our expectations.

For most of us, our lives, our thoughts, are full of expectations--for the next hour, for the next month, for after the kids leave home, for after the kids come back home … for after I retire, and for many levels into the future. We have a long time to build and rebuild our expectations for events that are far in the future.

We want to share our expectations with others. Communication is improved by voicing our expectations, so that we can build them in a compatible way. We want to build shared expectations with our partners. And we can delight in those shared expectations.

After an event, we compare our assessment of the outcome with our earlier expectations.

Happiness consists of positive outcomes that exceed our expectations.

Happiness is also improved by “attitude adjustment”, i.e., in reconciling failed expectations. Sometimes it helps to revise our expectations during the unfolding of an event.

If an event concerns our own behavior, we can alter our actions and meet our expectations. But what about our expectations of other people’s behavior?

And what happens when other people lay their expectations on us?

I’ll tell you the story of a man who was looking at bicycles in the sporting goods store. He finally selected one and he told the clerk, “It’s for my daughter’s birthday. She’ll be 12 next week.”
“Splendid,” replied the clerk. “Will it be a surprise?”
“Yes”, the man said. “It certainly will. She’s expecting a pony.”

Now this story doesn’t tell us how the girl reacted to her father’s present. It’s left to us to imagine how happy she was, and whether she adjusted her attitude. Perhaps she revised her expectations to include a happy vision of riding her new bike to school or with her friends.

Often, after my wife and I have left a concert, a movie, a party, or some other event, I will turn to Georgia and say “Well, that exceeded my expectations.” I feel satisfied.

But sometimes I wonder: perhaps I did not have much in the way of expectations. I think that that is a way I have of avoiding disappointment. Not to expect too much. If it is something I don’t have much control over, I should not expect too much.

Alexander Pope said “‘Blessed is the man who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed’ was the ninth beatitude.”

And Samuel Johnson said:

“As I know more of mankind I expect less of them, and am ready now to call a man a good man, upon easier terms than I was formerly.”

Kurt Kuhwald voiced his expectations last month when he turned 65. He said:

“But even with the security of material means, the body’s journey into its inevitable decline in energy and function … is relentless.”

Not a happy prospect.

Alice Walker said: “Expect nothing. Live frugally on surprise.”

“Life is so constructed that an event does not, cannot, will not, match the expectation.” — Charlotte Bronte

In 1844 Ralph Waldo Emerson told a meeting of the Mercantile Library Assn that “America is the country of the future. It is a country of beginnings, of projects, of vast designs and expectations.”

So America has long been a forward-looking country.

Expectations have become assumptions in the recent history of our modern American economy. We have come to assume that home prices would always go up, that stock prices would always go up, and that wages and prices would edge upwards with modest inflation. We came to count on it. We built our retirement plans on it. We assumed that gasoline would always be cheap and plentiful.

Ever since WW II, we assumed that the USA was the greatest nation in the world — in the history of the world. And that it would continue to be so, and that we would continue to be the beneficiaries of this greatness.

We assumed that there would be a technological fix for our problems. We assumed that modern medicine would be the key to a long life and a high quality of life. We came to expect all this. Those were our expectations.

Now we have been finding that one after another of these expectations has failed us. We have had to adjust. Our nation, our lawmakers have had to adjust. Our diplomats, our international bankers, our economists have had to adjust.

Most of all we have all had to adjust our attitudes, and scale back our expectations.

Economist Paul Krugman has listed the three most important criteria of economic progress in a modern society. They are (1) productivity of the work force, (2) uniformity of distribution of income, (3) unemployment. Other economic indications are secondary.

Krugman goes on to say that in America today we are increasing our productivity only marginally; we have a very skewed distribution of income — the rich get richer and the poor get poorer; and unemployment is high and rising.

Krugman asks: “Why are people not outraged, even in revolt??”

Krugman suggests that it is because of diminished expectations, and indeed he has entitled his 1993 book, “The Age of Diminished Expectations”. If we scale our expectations lower, we won’t be disappointed; we won’t feel so cheated by the system.

Now let us think about raised expectations:

Advertising is the art of raising expectations. Many a child has seen an ad or heard a TV pitch for a game, a toy, or a gadget that promises wonderful things. He develops high expectations: “If only I had that!” But many a child has his expectations dashed when the toy arrives. How do we help a child to deal with this frustration? How do we teach a child to be careful not to expect too much from ads?

Cultural expectations shade and color the images that parents-to-be form. The baby product ads, showing a woman serenely holding her child, looking blissfully and mysteriously contented, … influence parents-to-be.
— Ellen Galinsky

Travel ads trumpet: “Go now, pay later!“

In this country we are now mired in the aftermath of the housing boom-and-bust, because our expectations have been raised by real-estate salesman and eager lenders telling us that owning our own home is the essence of the American Dream. We are now in the middle of a political campaign, in which promises are made that raise expectations in the electorate. Candidates tend to promise anything that may help get them elected.

Bernard M. Baruch said “Vote for the man who promises least; he'll be the least disappointing.”

Shirley MacLaine is quoted as saying: “It’s useless to hold a person to anything he says while he’s in love, drunk, or running for office.”

I’ve noticed that Mr. Obama has been toning down some of his promises lately, making them more realistic. Because after the election, reality sets in; not all the promises can be kept, and we must learn to deal with unmet expectations. What is the healthiest way to approach this situation?

The situation is different when we deal with our own efforts.

Often I begin a project, the outcome of which depends largely on my own efforts and my own attitude. So, if I have low expectations, I may not be motivated to exert myself. But if I have high expectations, I will give it my best effort to make it a success — to fulfill those expectations.

Thus we need to develop high expectations of our own behavior so that we may aspire to worthy goals.

High expectations are the difference between standing still and growth. Low or no expectations accomplish nothing, except mediocrity.”
— Sam Walton

Michael Jordan said: “You have to expect things of yourself before you can do them.”

Kurt Kuhwald quoted Tom Pastor, his mentor, saying “We live not by our achievements, but by our aspirations.”

We must raise expectations for our own behavior, but we must be wary of letting other people raise them for us.

Stevie Wonder said, “You can’t base your life on other people’s expectations.”

“Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson.

(Talks in Unitarian/Universalist churches are usually improved with a quote from Emerson. It’s ironic though, because Emerson is reported to have said: “I hate quotes. Just tell me what you think.”)

“If you accept the expectations of others, especially negative ones, then you never will change the outcome.” — Michael Jordan

Goethe had a better approach to encouraging people to set high expectations when he said,

Treat a man as he is, he will remain so. Treat a man the way he can be and ought to be, and he will become as he can be and should be.

Patricia Neal said, “A master can tell you what he expects of you. A teacher, though, awakens your own expectations.”

Optimism

If you ask people, “Are you an optimist? Or a pessimist?,” many would say “I am a realist.” Well, I like to think of myself as an optimistic realist.

An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.
— Sydney J Harris, a 20th century columnist.

Goethe said: “Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing; a confusion of the real with the ideal never goes unpunished.”

Family relations are fraught with expectations. We expect that our close relatives will be loving, kind, and helpful. We expect that our children will be hard-working and take advantage of the opportunities we try to give them; even be grateful for the sacrifices we make to give them those opportunities. It is easy, even natural, to feel disappointed when those high expectations are not realized.

But on the other hand: It is said that “Behind every successful man stands an amazed mother-in-law.”

I’ve had a number of interactions with Stanford University over the years. At Commencement in June, one of my faculty friends there, a mentor and thesis advisor, told me that he is constantly being impressed with the capabilities and achievements of his students. They are writing papers, filing for patents, and making presentations, even before they finish their work there. And he concludes, “with young people of such creativity, imagination, and energy, one cannot be pessimistic about the future of the world.” He has high expectations.

And then there is the ultimate expectation:

What do you expect after the end of your life?

My own expectations are very low for that, for I expect nothing. Although history is full of religious leaders who have built a following based on the promise of life everlasting, I find that such an expectation is a poor substitute for a life lived well in the here and now.

We can have opposing expectations about the outcome of an event. We can expect the worst and hope for the best. Those who plan ahead must plan appropriately for more than one outcome. Mixed expectations.

Live as if you will die tomorrow but learn as if you will live forever. — Gandhi

Talk about mixed expectations!

In the retirement community where Georgia and I now live, and where we expect to live for the rest of our lives, we are constantly amazed at the lively interest our fellow-residents have in the world around them; they are constantly learning. But they have all gone through the chore of cleaning out a house that contained a lifetime of memorabilia, paring down their possessions, then relishing the thought that they have done something their friends say they could never do. They’re pleased that they will not leave an unmanageable clutter for their kids to deal with.

We are by and large a happy lot there.

Aristotle had a lot to say about happiness. At least one entire book of his is devoted to his analysis of what makes us happy.

One of Aristotle’s best lines goes: “Happiness is the successful exercise of vital powers, along lines of excellence, in a life that gives them scope.”

We deem those happy who from the experience of life have learned to bear its ills, without being overcome by them. — Juvenal, the writer from ancient Rome.

Our expectations are our windows on the future. To be without expectations is to be without life.

Happiness consists of positive outcomes that exceed our expectations.

Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto