Radiation Tinted Glasses

Expectations can make or break your life, choose them wisely

Sep 08, 2023

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Hello everyone, today’s broadcast is about the idiom ‘rose tinted glasses’ – where one looks through the lens of optimism. However, there are some that choose to view life or certain aspects of life with a different, more insidious lens, which irradiates any topic they decide to focus on, hence today’s title. Often, one way these people pollute discussion topics is through the use and abuse of goals and expectations.

Goals and Expectations

Goals and expectations, although similar, are not exactly the same. Goals are something typically set by oneself, and it is something that you work towards. Expectations are something that anyone can set, are typically part of the norm of everyday life. You don’t typically work towards expectations, as they are meant to happen without any extra input. Both goals and expectations can be big or small, they can be set by yourself for you, or by others.

The whole process of achieving goals can be high risk high reward: It requires a lot of time, effort and perhaps most importantly motivation to achieve a goal. When we do manage to achieve it, many of us are elated, happy that we have accomplished something, and our happiness is multiplied if we surpass our goal. If we don’t manage to achieve it, often varying levels of disappointment are felt, followed by reflection or regret.

Expectations, however, have much more neutral to negative emotions. As expectations are similar to forecasts or guess which we heavily believe in. If the things that we forecast come to happen, we don’t really feel extremely happy. Even when we expect something to happen that naturally is a good thing to us, I’d argue that the happiness stems from that thing itself- Everyone expects to be paid by a company they work for, and the happiness from getting paid is due to the money flowing into their accounts and subsequent ability to pay for things, not from the fact that their expectations were met.

Lets give you an example. Let say some random person comes up to you and says, I have a nice surprise for you, tomorrow I will give you a guaranteed sum of $100, no strings attached. You might feel very surprised, but happy, as you are going to be $100 richer, through no work of your own. When the next day comes and you get your money, you are once again happy, but not as happy as the day before. This may be because the ‘good surprise’ factor of it wears off, and you may have already counted that $100 as already being in your possession- maybe you decided to go out for dinner last night as a treat, knowing extra money was coming in tomorrow. You are likely to leave with a high opinion of this stranger, that promised and then gave you this sum of money for seemingly no reason.

Things take a turn for the worse when expectations are not met. No matter how large or small your expectation was, it shakes you. You might feel anger and/or confusion. There’s an instinctive path to anger, as someone has effectively ‘lost’ something. When you expect something, like a service or an item, in your mind, you effectively own that thing, and maybe make future plans based off the assumption that you will have that thing. A shattered expectation is akin to a loss. Humans suffer from loss aversion: Losses generally have a much larger psychological impact than gains of the same size.. This occurs even when things fall below expectations, as we have still ‘lost’ some amount that we believe we were owed.

Let’s go back to our example, but change it a little bit. Let’s say the random person comes to you and says, I have a nice surprise for you, tomorrow I will give you a guaranteed sum of $1,000, no strings attached. You might feel very surprised, even more so than in the other example as the amount being given is 10 times larger. However, tomorrow comes and the stranger gives you $100. Ask yourself, how would you feel in this situation? Are you happy? Do you feel cheated? Even if you realise that compared to the day before you are still $100 better off just like in the other example, emotionally, you are not as happy here. The expectation that you will receive $1,000 had an impact on you. You primed yourself, anticipating this influx of cash, and prepared accordingly, only to be disappointed. You are also likely to have a much lower opinion of this stranger, as he over-promised and under-delivered – the fact that he still gave you a considerable amount of $100 no longer seems as important.

Now, I’m not saying feeling like this is wrong. Yours truly would probably react the same way. But it does serve as an interesting example of how expectations can shape one’s happiness and overall fortunes in a very real way. I would argue that goals are not as divisive. You can set them for yourself, or you can decide to accept goals someone has set for you. If you meet or don’t meet your goals, its all down to you, and this internal responsibility may be why you don’t react as negatively to a failed goal as you do a broken expectation. And if you do have a strong reaction to not reaching a goal, maybe you had an expectation that you would reach it?

Expectations as a tool

But I don’t think expectations are something to be avoided. I think they are also a sort of measurement, or indicator. Someone that has high expectations set on them may be seen as someone who delivers at a high standard, conversely with someone with low expectations. One can argue that they are a measure of competency.

However, just like any tool, expectations can be used and abused. For instance, if you wanted to lower the public perception of someone or something, a good method would be to levy heavy, incredibly difficult expectations on someone, and when they inevitably don’t meet these, that ‘loss’ from failing stains that person or thing in other people’s minds.

This is often used as a tactic by politicians and media members looking to discredit things. For instance, someone might want to criticize their political opponent’s initiative, or plan. One way to do that is to ask, ‘ will it completely solve x?’ , ‘Is it definitely going to work?’ ‘Is it going to have an immediate effect?’. Obviously no serious plan ever completely works right away, but by asking such questions, the opponent either has to say no, lowering expectations and therefore the value of the idea, or they try to say yes, in which will inflict backlash in the future when the plan does not match what was claimed.

Such people also exist within the media, especially with the sports world. Now one such person is called Skip Bayless a media personality whose show alrgely covers american football and basketball (NBA), and some argue he has built a large part of his success off of rooting against Lebron James, basketball’s biggest star of the last 20 years. His constant setting of expectations is one of his favourite tools.

A Brief Tangent into the NBA GOAT Debate

In the NBA GOAT debate, it largely boils down to two: Michael Jordan and Lebron James. Bayless is firmly on the Jordan side, but his method of trying to convince others deserves some attention. Often during a show he sets out the hypothetical ‘If Lebron is the greatest of all time, I expect him to…’ followed by an impossible demand. This is a win-win situation for him as if Lebron matches that expectation, it gives credibility to Bayless for his ‘accurate prediction’. if Lebron fails, Bayless can use this as ‘proof’ that Lebron is not in fact the greatest, as he has failed expectations, and these instances of ‘failures’ are then brought up in future arguments as evidence against his GOAT case.

Its not about providing a valid, honest analysis and predictions, its about irradiating every topic, achievement or debating point, as if looking through radiation tinted glasses, so that one cannot bring them up without receiving a flurry of toxic responses or diving into pointless arguments. Every success that should be celebrated is retorted with the idea that he just did what was expected, and every failure is highlighted and held against him, brought up at every opportunity.

For some examples, Bayless always predicts some absurd stat lines for every Lebron game, and if Lebron plays phenomenally and matches that prediction, more credit goes to Bayless for his prediction than to Lebron for his great play. Even for entire seasons, or tenures at different teams, the method is the same: Raise expectations impossibly high, discredit the success and trumpet the failures. Bayless’ hounding of Lebron in this way has been going on for decades, and is relentless.

So much so, he often posts on Instagram to show off how early he rises, and when he does he gleefully calls out Lebron for not having the same work ethic as him. (Personally, if someone wakes up that early in the day and their first thought is to post about it and taunt a famous player for it- that’s crazy. I would also argue that the fact that Lebron James has not once responded to any of his baits in his 21 year career is another reason why he’s the greatest ever). But that’s part of his game: love his antics or hate his antics, you watched him, you commented on his content: all that means is that the total views are up for Bayless’ posts or for his show.

However, it’s not just Skip Bayless that uses this high-expectation trap- many everyday people do too. Perhaps Jordan’s greatest argument for his GOAT case is that he went 6-0 ( 6 wins and zero losses) in NBA Finals, while Lebron has gone 4-6. This expectation set by Jordan that the greatest wins every final they are in led to an absurd moment in 2018.

2018 Madness

There were 2 main NBA storylines in the 2018 playoffs- Warriors getting to the finals (after the Houston Rockets were robbed- I really want to write about this, but another time maybe) and Lebron somehow managing to drag his team to the semi finals. The Warriors were the greatest team ever assembled, and any team would have surely lost to them- A great team always beat a great player.

Therefore many people in their heart of hearts knew that Lebron had no chance in the finals- if he got there. And a finals loss would add another loss to the tally, another ‘failed expectation’ that the greatest always won in the finals. Therefore many advocated that Lebron lose in the semi-finals, as a finals loss would ‘damage his legacy’ - Many thought that not progressing as far would be better for him. What’s the logic in that??

If the expectation that the greatest don’t lose in the finals means that all the nuance (facing the greatest team ever assembled) and all the rationality (not progressing as far as you can in anticipation of future failure) is lost, then I’d argue that this represents a textbook case of over-expectations warping our view of reality, unable to appreciate or enjoy the good things in life.

While some of these examples may not directly relate to the audience, I believe that they illustrate that expectations and goals are just like any other tools- they can be useful with dealing with life, but if not used properly, they can derail and ruin one’s experience. While goals are more benign as they are more personal and rely on hard work, expectations are shaped by the behaviour of others, and often lead to an attitude of entitlement. As this broadcast draws to a close, I will leave you with two pieces of advice:

Expectations can make or break your life, so choose them wisely.

Set goals with the INTENT to reach them, not with the expectation.

That’s all from me for now, but stay tuned for future broadcasts,

This has been Kunga’s Written Radio,