“Expectation is the root of all heartbreak”
-Willam Shakespeare
Aside from the fact I think it would be a disagreeable sensation to kiss a frog – the expectation of my life salvaging prince appearing in response to said kiss is bound to disappoint. Simply living my life contributed to my recognition of how unrealistic expectations can be physiological troublemakers. And yet somehow, I still find myself occasionally yearning that a smooch on an amphibian would produce optimistic results.
Similar unsatisfactory results I fear are to be experienced when engaging in New Years resolutions – which are essentially promises made to yourself, someone, or something, with new and enriched results expected. The menace of being in an ‘expectant’ frame of mind is one that discounts the fact that what occurs in space between what we expect and want to happen and what actual happens is completely out of our control. This disconnect between what we imagine is going to happen and the reality of occurrences can set a stage ripe for disappointment and displeasure.
Fundamentally expectations are attempts at forecasting the future. Estimating probability of favorable results might include personal data, past experiences, social customs, friends and relatives’ behaviors, and subjective beliefs. Nonetheless, banish the thought from your mind that any one of these features can foresee what transpires will be exactly the same once again in seemingly identical circumstances. Some nuance or another will nudge the scene and make it different. I don’t see human nature giving up the innate desire to expend energy on expectant dreaming and I certainly spend hours speculating on what if and rummaging up responses. So, my mind also tries to mitigate the worrying problems that come along with over expectation. I utilize a learned method to support setting more realistic expectations and improvise ‘battle’ plans to handle whatever arrives that I read about many years ago in a Psychology Today magazine.
It is a process called ‘Purposeful Mindset Building” and involves deliberating various scenarios in your mind on potential situations that may transpire in the future with the objective of gathering diverse ways to cope and oversee them. It is believed by psychologists that at a cellular level your brain will subliminally register the instructive images provided and come to your aid by producing a more stabilized and cohesive response to an event. If you were on a game show – this could be your lifeline.
Mindsets developed personally to deal effectively with a given situation provide me with a sense of control over my life. It even reminds me of my favorite pastime – connecting the dots. By comprehending the psychology of expectations and employing approaches to supervise them I can reduce, not eliminate, the bothersome consequences experienced in collisions between my imposed fiction and life’s realities. Preparation is the winning half of any skirmish I believe, and so it seems as time moves forward in 2026 more scuffles are coming in this complicated and unsettled world we live in. I plan to be primed mind wise for the proceedings.
For 2026 I am breaking the yoke of New Year’s Resolutions societal peer pressure guilt. I am making no ‘outright’ promises to myself or any other entity. But I have envisioned two ‘Purposeful Mindsets’… No hopeful kissing of frogs and if I come across a genie lamp while strolling about, I will leave it where it lies for someone else to venture a new destiny.
–Leika