The Sunday News
Selusweyinkosi Mhlanga
THE glass being half-full or half-empty is a common expression, a proverbial phrase, generally used rhetorically to indicate that a particular situation could be a cause for pessimism (half-empty) or optimism (half-full), or as a general litmus test to simply determine an individual’s worldview, according to Wikipedia.
Are you an optimist or pessimist?
What were your last thoughts before you dozed off last night?
Were you grateful for the good things that happened yesterday , did you in the very least acknowledge that things turned out better than they could have, despite you not ticking all the things you thought you would on your to-do list?
What did tomorrow (today) look like to you when you were planning ahead for the next day?
Then today when you woke up, how were you feeling about the day?
What were your expectations that would carry you through the day?
The response to these questions sum up what kind of a person you will be for the day. If repeated daily these responses will give you an idea of the kind of person you are in general. Does that seem like a healthy, great personality that you should uphold or does something have to change? You will decide that.
You get what you expect
The Oxford Dictionary defines expectations as beliefs you hold that something will happen or will be the case. It’s not so much about what will happen to you but it’s about your expectations of what will happen.
If you are an employee and you believe that bosses are mean people even when your superior is mentoring you, you will feel as if they are torturing you.
If you are an employer and you think your workers are lazy you will see evidence of that laziness a lot more than an employer who sees things differently.
If you wake up and look forward to a great day, even bad news will not beat you down as hard as a person who woke up expecting another bad or lousy day. It’s all about way you view things relative to what you were expecting.
Know what you want and align your expectations with it
What kind of life do you want to live? This might sound like a silly question but it is meant to give you a push to decide the foundation of your life. If it’s a good life you want, you might want to align yourself with all things good.
Of course life happens to all of us, but walking around expecting the worst will only drag you further in your misery, not out of it.
Focus on good thoughts to improve your expectations
It will take a while to change your expectations, just as changing any belief or habit would.
This is not to say you should live in an unrealistic way, ignoring dangers coming your way or risk being taken advantage of. By all means acknowledge the bad things happening in your life, just don’t give much attention to them, but focus more on the good thoughts.
Let’s say you lost a loved one, there is, of course no way to bring them back and there is no way to avoid the grief or pretend that you are not feeling the pain.
What you can do is cherish the times that you spent with them and hold on to those wonderful moments.
Depression, regret about what you didn’t do for them, fear of how you will cope without them and anger will not assist you or your loved ones in any way. While you focus on the good memories hold the expectation that one day the pain will ease and you will be happy again.
If you go to sleep expecting that void to get worse you will not be disappointed. Accept the new status quo and have hope for the future.
Expectations and success
People who are driven are those who expect to excel at everything they do unlike those who are afraid to break new ground. How will you chart new paths when you do not expect to do well?
Great people who invented something had great expectations and that drove them to try all they could until they got to that stage where they excelled.
Yes, most did fail along the way, but had they viewed that failure as the end of the road they wouldn’t have achieved their quests.
Gregory Dickow in his book “Fasting from wrong thinking: Revolution from the inside out,” says “The thought that there’s not much we can do about the economy or our weight or the allergies we grew up with, etc. imprisons us to accept and tolerate a mediocre and weak life.”
Let us use the power of positive expectation to live our lives to the fullest.
One could say you get disappointed when you expect a lot but would you rather expect the worst every time and wallow in powerlessness? Make a choice that will serve you.
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