Ask Siggy Index
QUESTION: "Dear Siggy, I disagree with your advice to Bill. I think the only way to be happy is to lower your standards - as in, don't expect so much and then you won't be so disappointed. Be more realistic. from - a buddy of Bill"
SIGGY SAYS:
Subj: Lofty or Lower Expectations?
95-02-20
From: Siggy
Let me see if I understand your 'advice', dude...lower expectations to avoid disappointment? I suppose, on the upside, if you expect the least, the worst, or less than the best, (i.e., stay in a chronic state of disappointment) you'll never need deal with new disappointments, and it will be fairly easy to exceed your expectations!
I recall, about 10 years ago, a guy walking up to me on a break at one of my seminars and told me that although people around him thought he was negative, he wasn't. He said he was 'realistic.'
It seems to me that, more often than not, you get what you expect. Treat someone like a jerk, they'll become one right before your eyes. Tell someone they're incompetent enough times, and they won't need you anymore because they'll believe it themselves. Tell someone that chronically breaks promises that 'That's not like you! When you give me your word, you're able to keep it!' and they'll find the motivation to prove you right!
A study done in the Chicago school system a few decades ago, and published as 'Pygmalion Effect In The Classroom,' demonstrated an interesting phenomenon...that when the teachers were told they were teaching gifted children, the children performed as such. Turns out the kids were chosen at random! The teachers who participated in the study figured "Hmm, then we must be gifted teachers!" and the researchers informed them that they too were chosen at random!
Bill, by all means I encourage you to do what works for you! But as for advice to my readers, I continue to believe that, to a remarkable degree, we all get pretty much what we expect, and aspiring to the lofty altitude of 'the best' is more enjoyable, more uplifting, and in terms of life quality more effective than avoiding the worst by laying low. And all the best to you, wherever you find it, Rick P.S. Regards to 'friend of Bill'...realistic is what you make of it all. Everything is psychological, if you think about it. And reality is subjective no matter how objective you are!
Home | Relatives | People You Can't Stand | Life by Design | Media | Library | Bookstore
© 2002 R&R Productions, Inc.