Expectation – 2 (Expectation and Achievement)

Expectation and Achievement

Expectation and memory: 

The expectation is a part of our memory. It is built from the verbal, imagery, kinesthetic information from memory. The labeling, whether it is wanted outcome or unwanted outcome, is decided by the emotions attached to the expected final outcome. The imagined or memorized imagery may be vague, unclear, or it may be vivid, clear and detailed. The memories and imagination which are clear have high chances to achieve them.

Expectation and emotion: 

Expectation can be a source of pleasure and pain. Fulfilling the expectation leads to pleasure, and unfulfilled expectations lead to pain and disappointment. When an expectation is fulfilled, it leads to happiness or reward. When that reward or happiness is accepted or enjoyed, it leads to expansion of the ego or tendency to have higher expectations. Any reward accepted leads to accumulation of the karma. Karma means being acted upon (by memory). 

Accumulation of the karma takes away a part of the freedom or free will. For example, an official till he was clean enjoys with his salary. When he starts taking a bribe, he tries to procure things which are necessities, then comforts, then luxuries. The more the happiness from the bribe increases, the more the expectations keep on increasing. The attachment to the things also increases parallelly with the expectations Initial acts are oriented to fulfil the expectations, and subsequent acts lead to potentiation of the vicious cycle of the expectation. Then the acts are not due to the free will but compulsive under the influence of powerful expectations. 

Expectation and "I ": 

When a person starts imagining himself in the desired future situation, after repetitive pondering, the person starts developing a powerful expectation in which he also becomes part of it. Over some time, the imaginary situation becomes part of the" I ". The present "I" is subconsciously compared to the "Expected I". The "Expected I "is nothing but your "Expanded I". We start feeling that fulfilling expectation makes us more complete. Having a high expectation is indeed another way of making our self more incomplete. This generates pain in the body and motivation to fulfil the expectation. The more one becomes associated with the expectation, the more incomplete the person feels, and his survival is threatened, and more emotion is generated. 

Expectation and Exhaust: 

Did you ever notice how an exhaust fan throws out the jet of smoke or dust? Even if the smoke is distant from it, the exhaust sucks the flow and sends it to the other side. In the same way, the expectation acts as an exhaust fan for the focus. If you observe an exhaust fan, it has a central hub with axle and to it is connected to the fins which create negative pressure and exhausts the smoke. The EGO (delusional feel of certainty of the world and permanence of the self) acts as a central hub. The fins, i.e., material, money (dopamine), name, fame, (serotonin), family, mate (oxytocin), are clamped to the central hub in the same way. 

Expectation and role: 

You can say it this way, to become a good actor, you have to place yourself in the shoes of that role. You have to place yourself and believe yourself to be in that situation. Suppose you continue to believe that you are the person in the role even after the play is over, and you remain to believe that you are the person in the role even after you get down the stage. The attire you are wearing becomes your liability and reinforce of the delusion. In the same way, the expectation is the customised attire of the mind you have stitched with thoughts, emotions in time.

Construction of expectation: Building an expectation is not one day process, just like we construct a house, we build the expectation over the period of time. A house is built with bricks, in the same way, an expectation is built with thoughts. The thoughts are cemented to each other by means of association or emotion. The association of each thought with one another happens with the repetition, which leads to habit. Another method by which one memory associates with the other is through emotion.

Expectation as a reference:

I used to play with LEGO toys during my childhood. The toy set used to have several plastic brick-like pieces which used to have pegs and pits on their surfaces so that each brick can fit into others to form a larger or longer brick. The set used to have chimneys, propellers, wheels so that various constructions or vehicles can be built. There was a manual along with the toy set to help the children design various shapes and constructions. Our friends used to have competition with each other, the one who builds the shape given in the toy manual in the shortest span used to be the winner. One day we came across a gentleman who happens to be an architect, so we made him as our judge and had a competition. Most of us completed our tasks very quickly and noted the time taken by each of us. One of our friends took more time and made different interesting shapes which were not given in the manual. The judge declared him as the winner saying that he explored various possibilities which were not given in the manual.

We can say that various shapes given in the manual can be equated to the limited possibilities the life can be experienced. These fixed possibilities can be called as expectations. When we select a shape in the manual, we only try to seek for the bricks which fit into that particular shapes discarding hundreds of other bricks. When a particular shape given in the manual is made, we feel satisfied after seeing that construction. In the same way, when we start our journey of life with an expectation, we forage for things, thoughts, emotions, events, people who help us in fulfilling the expectation. 

In that game, we all built a fixed shape, and the person who made it in the shortest span is considered a winner. In the same way, a group of people who share a common expectation in the society and the one who reaches the expectation first declares himself as the winner. The rule for success is fixed. However, in our case, we presume a rule that a person who quickly completes a fixed shape is the winner. When the judge declared our friend as a winner, we understood that having a greater number of new possibilities is another way of looking at the success. We also understood that the rule to define success is not fixed. In the same way, the general definition of success is decided by society or a social group, or our need or necessity, which carves our expectation. Our expectation is the rule which guides our success.

The success which we made in constructing the shapes is measurable, in the parameters of time (shortest time) or number of shapes (number of shapes in a fixed time). The various shapes made by our friend are not prefixed, and his success cannot be measured in the parameters of time or number of the shapes. It is subjective; hence it was appreciated by the judge who was an architect. His success cannot be measured; it can only be experienced in terms of feel. 

When we started to construct the shape, our main motive was to search for the shape which contributes to the shape given in the manual, as quickly as possible. Our friend used to pick a brick randomly, and he used to see all the possibilities in which he can make the best use of the brick. In the same way, most of us have prefixed expectation in the mind even before the journey of life starts. All the events of life are sorted in the background of the expectation in the back of our mind. Some people start their journey without any prefixed expectation, and their main goal remains how to make the best use of the event they confront to make the journey beautiful. The former group is "expectation centred group", and the latter is "life centred group".