Just Fanfictions : Expectations

I have always thought, well not always, but for sometime now, thought that expectations are complete crap, predictions, no matter how educated they are, can never account for every human factor, for every unknown. Which is why I never assume anything about a given day, I mean, there are a lot of things that I can guess or even expect. For example, if I'm having a particularly good morning I generaly say that by the time I go to bed that night, I won't be feeling very well. I have no idea if this bit of information holds any merit but I do know that it has proven to be reliable in my alterations of plans and therefore I stick pretty closely to this idea even though it's something assumptuous and rather naive. I wish I knew why this works but I don't, it's just something that I have kept track of for quite a while. I don't know if that's a prediction or a stupidly preconceived expectation or if it's just a tidbit of information that I can guess about my own emotional pattern, no matter the various elements that cross my path throughout the rest of the day.

As humans, making expectations constantly throughout the day about things that are both important and unimportant to us is basically what makes up our thought process (At least it is for me). We just constantly judge based on what we've just thought so whenever nothing comforms to what we just figured out, our days are saddened just a little bit because it's expectations that make the assumption that our expectations should be accurate and they rarely are. Our expectations are what give us the warm fuzzy omnipotent feeling that makes us feel like little underworshiped gods, running around knowing exactly what is about to happen because we're intelligent and we're the masters of our universes. Which we're not, we're a very stupid and foolhardy species. The Doctor knows that, he likes us for our more charming traits, certainly not the traits that we pride ourselves on.

Some expectations are really big, bordering on huge and these usually have something to do with elements of our desired future... Which are always all wrong at every given moment that you're thinking about them. However, some expectations are small and these are the ones that we really need to be correct because these are our favorites, these are the ones that make our days go smoothly and sweetly. Much like the little disapointment in expectations that I had today, I was looking out the window of my college eating area, wrapped up in my own little world (Which is where people like me usually are since it's so rainbow-y and charming up there) and I saw some students walking around the patio with clip boards. They were asking people questions and from what I observed I figured that they were doing a petition for something. I got very excited, You see, I love the feeling of adventure and the little adrenaline rush that comes with talking to people that I expect to talk to and do so according to the very detailed script that I've already got prepared for the conversation, so I made an expectation for the following walk that I was about to take from the student center to the library. It went something like this; I would walk out the doors, they would engage me, ask me to sign something, then I would sign whatever it was and I would have a little moment of connection with a stranger, finally, I would walk away to the library with that warm and satisfied smile on my face. That didn't happen at all, even though I got the process right I didn't get the reason correct, it wasn't a petition it was something that I couldn't sign and without the completion of that one last step, everything fell apart and I walked back to the library feeling empty and emotional all over a slightly miscalculated expectation. When I look back on this day tonight, that one little misstep is going to over shadow a lot of other parts that made up this particular day.

Oh well, though, that's life, just like I always expect to be good at anecdotes but then when I go to write them, they never turn out as good as I was expecting. Perhaps I'll break another expectation of mine on purpose to give myself the illusion of control that got crushed due to this little insignifigant event. You see, we're all for broken expectations as long as WE'RE the ones doing the breaking because we're humans and we have a natural need to know that we don't know everything so that we can tell ouselves that we know everything because we want to know everything. Ha! I just totally Jack Sparrowed that sentence.. I love it when that happens.

We're never going to quit this habit, I do know that, but perhaps if we alter the expectations to a human level it wouldn't be so bad. Unfortunatly its easy to argue with that pessimistic attitude towards expectations. We want to be positive about this whole thing so another methods is just to always make grand expectations, you know, so it doesn't take away from your "Dreams" and that is a sweet outlook. On the other hand another popular one is the phrase "No expectations. No disapointements." (They do a really good job exploring the merit of that one in the movie "Dodgeball" with Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller (Along with a big bunch of funny actors)) I'm a little bit more partial to that one seeing that it's technically true even though it has a bit of a lazy undertone that most of us try to avoid.

Anyway, I don't know if I have a point with this, it's just something that I wanted to mention (Plus I had an easy anecdote right at my fingertips and it's stupid to waste those) I guess, just MODERATE your expectations, it's never good to be too optimistic or pessimistic towards these things but It generally works to have a bit of both making the proper assumptions for the variety of situations that you'll need to make expectations for throughout your day.