A family member told me about seeing a bumper sticker that said, "Lower expectations mean a happier life for you!" It is meant as a sort of joke, of course, but it's also actually true in a sense. Sometimes high expectations can lead to good results, but they also have the potential to result in disappointment. I suppose we each have our own level of tolerance for risk.
I'm not saying low expectations are good, necessarily. But, perhaps, sometimes our expectations are unreasonably high...
My counselor advised that lowering ones expectations is a coping strategy. If one expects less, then logically it follows that the disappointment will be less. To me it meant lowering my standards. I would be lowering my standards should I choose such as a partner. Ah, the glories of illumination & epiphany & the mentoring lacking in ones earlier years.
Reminds me of a quote from the film Ishtar (1987)
It takes a lot of nerve to have nothing at your age, don't you understand that? Most guys'd be ashamed, but you've got the guts to just say 'to hell with it'. You say that you'd rather have nothing than settle for less, understand?
When you also take in to account the fact that. There are so many people and institutions, political, commercial, religious, who profit from raising your expectations to unreasonably high levels, and then posing as having the ability to fulfill them. You have to realize that, firstly, your expectations may not be completely your own invention, and that if you do lower them, then you maybe escaping every one of the worlds great con-tricks.
Exactly! Too many times I've succumbed to peer pressure and external expectations, but I'm working my way off of that hamster wheel!