Tag: struggle

Management of Expectations

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If you have been following, you will have noticed I missed a week. I was incredibly busy and delayed in writing, but when the opportunity arose to write, I thought it might be best to delay further. Normally, I would write tomorrow, but I thought today made more sense. Ironically, all of this leads well into my discussion for today. What I often call the management of expectations.

For you, my dear reader, it is best if I keep to a schedule. That way, you know what to expect from me. If I meet your expectations, then you are (generally) not disappointed by me, as my posts will appear when you predict they ought to appear. This will make me reliable in your eyes. If I don’t keep to my schedule, as I did this past week, then you may be disappointed, and then you may also lose trust it me. In this case, I become unreliable. It affects our relationship whether I meet your expectations of me.

In my youth, I participated in performing arts. Specifically, I joined an improvisation troupe for a brief period after I had finished high school. To join the troupe, I had to take a basic class on how improve worked and what sorts of games/performances I would be expected to perform. If you’ve ever seen Whose Line Is It Anyway?, then you probably are familiar with the sorts of performances I did. Improvisation, as it turns out, has a lot to do with the management of expectations.

To be successful at improvisation, one must do one seemingly simple thing: lower the expectations of your audience, and then follow it up with doing what comes natural. That’s it. It is a ridiculously simple formula that works incredibly well. If you can reduce the expectations of your audience, then they will be impressed by almost anything. This is why improve troupes often go to the audience to ask for ideas in their performances; by asking the audience for ideas, the audience typically believes that the performance that is about to follow will be much more difficult, as the performers have had no opportunity to prepare for what the are about to do. Without appropriate preparation, acting out a coherent scene seems impossible. However, the performers listen to the audience’s suggestions and then create an often wacky scene that frequently impresses that same audience.

Of course there are those performers who are not as good at this sort of play. If the performers do not actually follow or use the audience’s suggestions, or if the scene is too far fetched, then the performance may lack the impressive qualities that one might expect. Again, it is all about those expectations. What we anticipate in contrast to what we actually behold.

Life, I have found, is much like an improvisational performance. Those around me are my audience, in a sense, though they tend to be as much a part of my performance as I am of theirs. However, much like the improve audience, those around me have expectations of me. Like this blog, my readers will probably expect that I will post once a week, and usually on Sundays, because I have created this expectation by the frequency of my past posts. As I had indicated at the beginning, my audience will probably be affected by my ability to maintain that expectation.

While I do believe it is important to manage the expectations of others in this world, where this idea really becomes important (in my opinion) is when applied to one’s self. Managing one’s own expectations. I use the above examples and explanation in order to try to make clear what has to happen, but it isn’t so much about how we manage the expectations of others that is important, as much as how we manage our own for our selves. This is how management of expectations ties in very closely with the struggle and sacrifice I was talking about in my past few posts.

Managing one’s own expectations is a challenging thing. In some sense, it is nonsensical entirely. After all, I simple expect what I expect, don’t I? How can I alter my expectations? In the part of the world where I live, expectations of the self are rather high. It seems to me that most people are very concerned with taking the greatest advantage in all situations. What I often refer to as the bigger, better deal. (I did not coin this term; it has been around for a very long time, and I do not know its actual source.) The bigger, better deal, or BBD, is the mindset one adopts when they are constantly looking for some way to improve their situation. If one has a car, one is always looking around for a faster or fancier car. If one has a computer, one is always looking for a faster or better performing computer. In relationships, the BBD is quite insidious, as most people seem entirely unsatisfied with their partners, always gazing around them for a better partner. This last issue is incredibly problematic I find.

As I see it, the BBD mindset is inappropriate to adopt in all situations. It may be helpful in a limited number of situations, such as when I am shopping around for the best computer to purchase given my circumstances. However, it is entirely inappropriate when selecting a partner in life, whether romantically or even professionally. I will address my viewpoint on interpersonal relationships in a future post; for now I will simply say that BBD is incompatible with interpersonal relationships. A different strategy needs to be adopted when dealing with people in that way.

An alternative mindset to hold is one where I am satisfied with what I have. Those around me often refer to this as settling for a thing. The term settling has a negative connotation, and so I prefer not to use that term. What I have in mind is an acceptance in what I have, allowing me to gain the most enjoyment and satisfaction from whatever it is, often in the present. This is related to “living in the now,” or “living in the present,” to share a phrase that is often used. To be satisfied with today. To be able to take enjoyment with today, instead of worrying about possible futures. If I am always worrying about the future, I never spend time enjoying what I do have here an now.

To manage my expectations properly, I need to be able to be satisfied with what I have, here and now. Not absolutely everything, but enough. I live in a home with various deficiencies. There are holes in the walls in places, the floors are not perfectly flat, I have no air conditioning and the weather has been rather hot lately. I can work toward improving these deficiencies in the future, but I can also enjoy my home for what it does offer me. It provides me shade from the hot sun on a day like today. My home also allows me to sit here and write this blog to you, and I can be happy that I have this opportunity. I am in a committed relationship with my partner, and I can be happy that I have that too.

It isn’t always easy to accept the things I have. There are certainly times when I want more. However, I don’t actually need more most of the time. And sometimes, getting that more results in a decrease in my happiness instead of an increase. Food is the best example I have of this. I tend to always be hungry. I would eat pretty well all the time if I could. However, when given the opportunity to eat as much as I can, I tend to overdo it. I tend to eat until I am unable to eat any more, and then I feel bloated and very uncomfortable for hours afterward. The satisfaction at stuffing my face full of tasty food is lost by excruciating hours of dissatisfaction. Clearly, in this particular situation, for me, more is definitely not better. I have had to learn to be satisfied with much less food, and I have had to learn to not eat just because I can. I can enjoy some tasty food, and then stop myself from going too far. I can be satisfied with enough, and learn to accept the perceived lack that follows. Or, I can recognize that the perceived lack is just that, perceived. I am not actually lacking anything. The loss is all in my mind.

This also applies with types of foods. I learned a long time ago that some foods tasted very good when I ate them, but then made me feel like crap afterward. For example, potato chips and Cheezies taste quite good when I eat them, but leave me feeling sluggish and heavy shortly afterward. However, there are other foods that are the opposite. For example, when I eat Kashi Go Lean cereal, the original cereal and not any of the plethora of other varieties available, I find that eating the cereal isn’t terribly exciting and the taste is not all that great, but for the rest of the day I feel much, much better. In other words, some activities I engage in have an instant gratification, and others have a gratification that follows, and sometimes I am lucky to find something that can satisfy both, like eating an apple or a pear. It is a fundamental misunderstanding of expectations as it relates to food that I believe is the cause of obesity in North America, as well as the adoption of the BBD with food.

Understanding how food works, and therefore recognizing what I ought to expect from my food, helps me to make better decisions and live a happier life. I understand that I cannot simply eat anything I want simply because it happens to taste good in the moment, because I expect that I will feel like crap later. Or, I expect that eating that Kashi cereal will result in a benefit to myself later. A non-food example like this is exercise. Exercising is not generally an enjoyable activity in itself. Exercising means pushing myself to do difficult things. However, if I push myself and do those difficult things, later I can enjoy a stronger body that looks much nicer as well.

Looking at this in the other direction, if I do not understand how food works, and I do not recognize the effects that it will have, then I will be left disappointed. If I think that eating all those Cheezies will make me feel good, without the feeling of sluggishness afterward, then I am disappointed later when I feel sluggish. In other words, I need to have appropriate expectations of the situations I put myself into. I cannot expect things to be better than they actually will be. This is often brought about by a lack of information, or misinformation. This is likely why I have such a significant distrust of marketing and advertising, and sales in general, as most of the time those activities lead to a lack of information or misinformation. The opposite situation occurs to what the aim of improvisation is; instead of the audience’s expectations being lowered, the audience’s expectations are raised and then when the performer/sales person does what comes natural, the audience is disappointed.

To be happy in this life, it tends to be helpful not to have such high expectations. If my expectations are low, then I will be impressed and happy with what the world offers me. On the other hand, if my expectations are high, then I will be disappointed by what I find in the world. This again seems like a simple situation and a simple solution to happiness, but as with all things there is much more to the story. After all, why would millions of people adopt a mindset like BBD then? It is often argued that having those higher expectations is what motivates people to try and make an effort at projects. Is there a situation where one can have low expectations and yet still be motivated to their projects?

Struggle and Sacrifice

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I’ve discussed sacrifice, and how it is a transaction where one gives up a thing of value for another thing of value (hopefully the thing gained has greater value than the thing given up). And I’ve discussed struggle, and how it is the process that generates (or reveals) value. Now I will discuss how these two ideas work together, and why this is important to me.

Both struggle and sacrifice deal with the valuation of things. Those things can be tangible, such as the value of my car or my home; or they can be intangible, such as the relationship I have with a friend or acquaintance. I personally follow the line of thought the Existentialists followed with regard to intrinsic value; that is, I do not believe anything has intrinsic value, and that all value is assigned by some sort of agent. Furthermore, I believe that the value assigned by a particular agent is not necessarily the same as the value assigned by another, different agent, when both agents are talking about the same thing. Whether intrinsic value exists or not is a long, ongoing debate by many people in our world; this post is not intended to engage with that debate. It should be enough for my reader to understand my position, and therefore why struggle and sacrifice are so important to me.

If it is not clear by now, all of these ideas revolve around the idea of value. It may be helpful to briefly discuss what value is. Value, as I understand it, is a measure of the willingness one has to submit their personal time and effort into a thing. That is, the more personal time and effort one is willing to put into something, the more value that thing has to that person. For example, if I am willing to sit at this table and spend time and effort in writing this blog post, then I am expressing or revealing that I value this blog in some way. The more time and effort I put into this blog, the more valuable the blog is to me. If I decide I’m more interested in playing a video game or making lunch, then playing that video game or making lunch likely are more valuable to me. If I forego playing the video game in favor of writing this blog, then the blog is more valuable to me. In other words, those things I decide to invest my time and effort in are the things I consider most valuable to me. This now touches on the idea of freedom.

In some sense, I need to be free in order to decide what to spend my time and effort on. That freedom is how I can assign or reveal the value in things, at least from my view point. I must be free to decide which things I will spend my time on in order to assign or reveal value. If I am not free to decide what I will spend my time on, then it is no longer an expression of valuation. For example, when I am employed with a company, and I perform duties as part of my employment, those activities are not necessarily valuable to me. My deciding to fulfill my duties reveals the value of my employment with the company, but does not reveal the value in the activity itself. As those who have worked “bullshit jobs” may already recognize, there are times when I consider the work I’ve been asked to do to hold very little if any value at all. (Consider the situation where I am working an eight hour shift at a job, and I have been asked to clean the floor of a room. Upon completing the task the first time, if I have done so in less than the eight hours of my shift, my boss may ask me to clean it again. I may argue that the floor is already clean, but my boss may insist I still clean it a second time, as he wishes me to work for the entire eight hour period. This is often referred to as a “make work project.”)

The point being made here is that I need to be free to decide what I spend my time on, or where I place my effort, in order to reveal or assign value in a thing. However, it isn’t necessarily clear what the thing is that I am assigning value to. When I help a friend clean their apartment, is it the act of cleaning that I value, or is it the relationship with my friend that I value, or perhaps a combination of both things and of others. Valuation can become quite complicated very quickly. In all situations, I still need to be free to decide for myself in order to assign or reveal value.

Tying this all together, when I struggle, I am assigning or revealing value in a thing. To struggle, for me, is how I generate value in this world. Sacrifice is when I purposely struggle and then release that thing of value for something of greater value. For example, as an employee for a company, I may struggle to perform my duties, revealing the value I hold in my employment, and then sacrifice my hard work for a paycheck that I will then later sacrifice for food and other things. I struggle to create something of value, that I then sacrifice in order to gain things of greater value (to me) that I likely would not be able to struggle for myself.

An example of something I may not be able to struggle for myself directly is a house. While it is true I could spend my time and effort building a house, it is likely not something I will ever do myself. For one, my skills are generally not in the areas of construction. Also, in order to accomplish the many other things I need to accomplish, such as feeding myself, it may be inappropriate to spend so much time on my shelter. Instead, I choose to spend my time on fixing computers and helping people in other ways, generating income for myself. With time, I can accumulate enough wealth that I can sacrifice in exchange for a house that others have built, typically also involving some sort of financial institution whom I will have to beg for a loan from. A rather complicated transaction with many different parts, but clearly one where I am unable (or unwilling) to struggle myself directly for the house, instead struggling on other things and then sacrificing in order to accomplish my aim of a house.

There is much more I could say on this topic, but this is likely enough for my reader for now. Recognizing the transactional nature of my free choices in order to accomplish my projects is a big deal, as I see it. It is also why when I work a job for a company, I have learned not to get too caught up in the duties I am asked to perform. Within reason, of course. If I am asked to do tasks that I consider unethical, I may reveal the value of my ethics by declining such duties. However, if I am asked to clean the floor a second, and sometimes third time, even though I know that the floor is already clean, I can reveal how I value my employment and my relationship with my boss more than rubbing a wet mop across the floor.

Struggle

crimsonLeave a comment

It seems to me that while the idea of struggling appears to be simpler and easier to understand than the idea of sacrificing, people seem more comfortable with sacrifice than they are with struggle. The idea that one gives up something in order to (hopefully) gain something of greater value is considered in the society I live in to be among the greatest things a person can do. Those who make sacrifices are considered the greatest among people. As common examples, figures such as Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi are considered exemplars of sacrifice, giving up their own luxuries and comforts in order to serve others. But is it sacrifice that they have done, or is it struggle (or perhaps a combination of the two)?

When I use the term “struggle,” I have in mind something similar to what in the Buddhist tradition is often referred to as “suffering.” Where suffering might be understood as a state of being, where one is not entirely settled (always wanting; always unsatisfied), struggle is the act one would take in order to at least try to escape suffering. Reading over what I’ve just written, I think I’ve made my point more confused rather than clearer, so I will try again.

When I graduated high school, my parents gave me a Toyota Corolla. It wasn’t a new car; it was my mom’s old car. They suggested I had earned it by doing well in school. However, I didn’t view the situation as they did. I didn’t understand. For me, high school wasn’t much work at all. Most of my classes came easy to me and I rarely (if ever) needed to study. I did not view high school to be something I had to work very hard at, and so graduating high school did not come with any significant sense of achievement. In fact, for me, I was simply happy to get out so that I could move on with my life. The gift of a car, under these circumstances, was not something I had earned. It was simply something I gained without any real effort. And I unfortunately treated this car with the same amount of respect as I felt toward my high school career. In other words, I ran the car into the ground, not taking care of it and damaging it greatly over the few years I drove it.

Later in my life, when I again was in need of a vehicle, I found an opportunity to purchase an Nissan Xterra at a significantly discounted price. I had been working in “the real world” for a while by then, and had learned to save money reasonably well. I had the cash in my savings account to cover the entire cost of the vehicle. This time around, I knew precisely where the money came from, as I had to earn it through my labours. Using my own father’s suggested calculations, the price of the Xterra (for me) was approximately four months’ wages. That is, were I to have set aside every single penny I had earned over the course of four months of my working, not using that money for anything else (such as rent or food), then I would have earned just enough to purchase this vehicle. Keep in mind that means working approximately eight hours a day, five days a week, for about sixteen weeks. That’s a significant expenditure of my efforts for this vehicle.

In the case of this Xterra, I understood the efforts I had to make in order to earn this vehicle. This vehicle was worth approximately four months of my life. Knowing and understanding this, I treated the vehicle with much more respect. While still not perfect, I at least tried to maintain the vehicle, performing the routine repairs and upkeep on the vehicle. I say I tried, because I discovered years later where I had been deficient when I was forced to deal with a broken timing belt. If you are not aware of such things, you’d have been in the same situation as I was at the time this happened. Most people told me that such an incident was unrecoverable, and that I ought to simply purchase a new vehicle. I was very lucky I had a friend who helped me to replace the belt, and I am happy to say I still drive the Xterra to this day.

The situation I found myself in with the Corolla was not struggle, but the situation with the Xterra was struggle. Struggle, for me, is the situation where one has to put in effort or work in order to gain something. One cannot be given struggle; one must earn it themselves through their own efforts. When I work toward something, then I am struggling. Struggle, for me, is not a negative (nor positive) thing. Struggle is simply a way to describe how something came about. If I gain something through my efforts, such as working a job, then I have struggled for it, in this case money. If I gain something because someone simply gives it to me, such as the Corolla that my parents gave me for graduating high school, then I have not struggled for it. Thus, struggle is a measure of the effort I make toward my projects.

As the example above may also demonstrate, struggling toward my projects also brings with it a respect for those projects. The more I struggle for something, the more I respect the thing I gain from my struggles. The more I respect the thing I gain from my struggles, the greater the value of the thing I have gained, at least from my perspective. If you have been reading all my posts up to this point, you will already know that I consider value to be something we each apply to things in this world. In other words, the Corolla that my parents owned before they gave it to me was likely of great value to them, as they had to work hard to earn that car. However, for me, the Corolla had very little value as I did not have to struggle for it very much at all. Struggle is part of a process that assigns value to things.

Earlier in this post, I mentioned suffering from Buddhism, and suggested it had a relationship with struggle. Suffering, as I understand it, is not a negative (nor positive) thing either. Suffering is simply a state of being unsettled. To become a buddha, one needs to no longer be in a state of suffering. To put this another way, a buddha is no longer in a state of change. Suffering is related to changing, like being in a state of flux. If you look around you, you will likely appreciate that everything in this world is in a state of change. There is no permanence in this world. We may want there to be permanence in things, but really, everything in this world is impermanent. The ground is eroding through the movement of air and water, our bodies are undergoing countless chemical and mechanical changes, the siding on my house is wearing down and will eventually need to be replaced or repainted. Everything is changing. We are changing. We are thus suffering. To be a buddha, we need to bring ourselves into a state of no longer changing, no longer suffering. The acts we take in our attempts to end suffering are struggles.

I feel like I may have overdone it in this post. Really, all I wanted to describe was what I take struggling to be. I consider it to be an incredibly important thing. Struggling is one of the important ways I generate value in my world. I work very hard, and put a lot of effort into, the things that I consider of greatest value. My relationships with other people are probably the best example of this.

Relationships, as I see them, are not static or unchanging things either. I must put effort into my relationships in order to generate the value in those relationships. The more effort I put in, the greater the value the relationship has for me. But relationships do not simply get to a state of unchangingness. Relationships change and evolve, just like everything else in this world. Thus, not only do I need to put a significant amount of effort into my relationships to begin with, in order to generate their significant value to me, I must also continue to put significant amounts of effort into my relationships on an ongoing basis. Relationships are about struggle. The more I struggle in my relationships, the greater those relationships are.

An example of what I am taking about. When I was in high school, I dated someone whom I still, to this day, consider very special. I know that that relationship is long since passed, and I do not expect to ever be in a relationship like it again, but it was special and I will always remember it. Why it was so special was the shear amount of struggle I had to put into the relationship. My parents did not want me to have a relationship with this person, and this person’s parents did not want them to have a relationship with me. We both had to fight our respective parents, and our respective friends, in order to maintain our relationship. It very much was a Romeo and Juliet sort of relationship. We both agreed that we wanted to be together, and so we both struggled very hard for the relationship. Of course, like the tragedy by Shakespeare, it also collapsed in equally fantastic fashion. I blame myself for what occurred, but the truth is we both had our respective parts to play.

The point of all of this is simply that struggle is a key and important aspect of my life. Struggle represents all the effort I put into everything, and the value that I assign to my world though all that effort. In my next post, I will discuss how sacrifice and struggle work together, and why I consider them the greatest realization for me.