17 Lower expectations & be content
Being content means that you are satisfied with your life as it is, so you are basically happy. So being content is essential for our happiness. If we are not content with our lives, we will often haves thoughts of dissatisfaction with our situation, jealousy on what others have and obsessions with things we feel we need. All of these thoughts - dissatisfaction, jealousy and obsession- are toxic to our happiness, so it is important to be content to prevent us from getting these negative thoughts.
17.1 The damage to happiness of high expectations
In order to be be content one of the most important things is not to try to achieve more but to lower our expectations of live. By lowering our expectations of what we need in order to be content, we can dramatically increase our happiness.
This realisation came to me when I was reading the book on Cognitive Therapy by David Burns, called “Feeling Good”. While reading the book I saw many examples of people that had been cured from depression by seeing that there negative thoughts about themselves did not make and that they actually did not have to be afraid of their future. I could see how many people would be helped by those techniques, but I was depressed at the time, but none of those techniques seemed to apply to me, since I had a very high self-esteem and had a very positive outlook on the future.
So why was I depressed? I thought that I was:
Very intelligent
Very handsome
Very athletic and fast
Very good academically
But for me it was not enough to be very good; I wanted to be the best and in many cases I actually was the best among my peers. But once I would compare myself to people outside my inner circle of friends, I always would find people who are better than me; some people being more intelligent, some being more handsome, some being more athletic, etc. This is of course is totally natural and no reason to be unsatisified. But my problem was that I would always compare myself to the next better category, so that I would always come short of what i expected, and thus I would be unhappy.
My vision for my future was to build several businesses, become a billionaire and then go into politics and solve the world’s most important problems.
So the assumption of Cognitive Therapy that we become depressed when we are thinking of ourselves worse than we are or that we are very pessimistic about the future, did not seem to hold true because was depressed even though I was very confident and had a very positive outlooks. The reason why I was depressed, was because the bar I had set for myself to be happy, was so high, that I gradually become more and more aware that although I could be very good in many things I would not be the best in everything, and that my grandiose vision was unlikely to be realised.
17.2 Stage of lowering expectations
Lowering expectations is not easy, painful and goes through several stages, as I will illustrate with myself.
17.2.1 Negation
As a teenager, being very confident about my strengths, and finishing university at 19 and having 3 Master degrees and speaking 5 languages at 22, I still felt that I was extremely good and had a grandiose future ahead of me.
Then several things happened, like for example business failures, where I could see my years passing by without me getting closer to the positions that I was expecting to get into. And as I continued to advance to my goals much slower than I had thought, the gap between my reality and between my expectations was widening.
This gap between my expectation and my reality made me stressed and depressed. While I could kind of notice the gap and could see its negative effect, I refused to acknowledge it.
17.2.2 Realization
One day, while I was walking in nature and thinking about my life, it dawned on me that many of my goals I would never be able to realize and that I just had to accept reality. This was an extremely painful realisation.
17.2.3 Adjustment of expectations
For about one week after the realisation I was very sad, because I had to give up on my life goals and set new more achievable life goals that were much closer to my reality.
17.2.4 Happiness
However, once I had replaced my old glorious, but unattainable vision with a vision of my life that seemed within reach, I could feel how much less burden I had and how much happier I became.
Not only that, but also my motivation increased, because now, even though the new vision did not seem as grandiose, it seemed to be really attainable, so I could sense that by working hard, I would actually get there, while before I could not see a path to my prior vision.
17.3 Hedonic expectations
Later, I learned that there is actually a term for this adjustments in expectation: “hedonic adaptation”. It basically means that it is not important how well off we are in absolute terms but in relative terms to our expectations.
Here are some more examples:
17.3.1 Tsunami
Two fathers go with their son on vacation in Thailand, when suddenly a Tsunami hits. The Tsunamis kills the son of one father, and the other son only has a minor knee injury.
One months later one father and son find out that actually the knee injury is serious, thus they get upset. At the same time the other son is found alive, only with a serious knee injury. The other father is extremely happy. So in summary, both fathers have a son with a serious knee injury but one is sad and the other is happy.
Why do the fathers have different feelings even though their reality is the same? Because one father's reality turned out worse than what he expected, while the others turned out much better than what he expected.
17.3.2 Leg surgery
Two patients have leg surgery. One surgery seems to have gone perfect and the patient is told he will be fine within a month. Then a complication happens and the patients has to return to the hospital. After 3 months more complications happen. But again the prognosis is that in 1 month everything will be fine. But then more complications happen, so that after one year the patient is barely able to walk on crutches.
Another surgery is a complete failure and the patient will be bound to the wheelchair for life. But then he miraculously gradually recovers, so that finally he is able to walk on crutches after one year.
Same situation for both patients; after one year they are able to walk on crutches, but the second patient will feel much happier than the first! Why? Again, because the expectation of the first patient was to be able to walk within a month, and walking on crutches after one years is much worse. But for the second patient, the expectation was to always be wheelchair bound, and being able to walk on crutches is much better than his expectations.
17.4 Techniques to uncover irrationality of expectations
As we have seen above Cognitive Therapy proposes various techniques for the patient to realize that in fact he is not as bad as he thinks, and that there is nothing terrible to worry about. However, as we have also seen, for many of us that are feeling depressed, it is not that we are pessimistic about the future or that we have a low self esteem, but instead we just have too high expectations of ourselves and of our future and therefore it becomes very difficult to be content and thus happy with our life.
Thus I have developed the following techniques for me and other to recognize that we actually have a lot of reason to be content about our life:
Ask if there are people worse off
Rate yourself
Inventory of non-monetary assets
Ask with whom you would want to change
17.4.1 Asking if there are people worse off than you
When have unreasonably high expectations you will be discontent. So for example, if you think you:
Need to be an all A student, but you get one B you will be discontent.
Need to be a billionaire, but are only a millionaire, you will be discontent.
Need to look like a top model, but though you look gorgeous are a little too short to be a model, you will be discontent.
Need to lodge in a 5 star hotel, but only have the money for a 3 star hotel, you will be discontent.
In these cases I have found it to be helpful to ask myself the question:
“Even though I am not satisfied with this aspect of my life, is there anybody, who is worse off?” The answer to this question is always yes!
How many people in the world are likely going to be worse off. The answer to this in most cases “between 60%-90%”.
Thus, I ask myself: “If in a certain aspect of my life, I am better of than the vast majority of people, most of whom are not worried about that aspect, why do I need to be worried? Do I even have a right to be unsatisfied?”
17.4.2 Rate yourself
This “rate yourself” technique is similar to the above technique of asking if other people might be worse of. In this technique you look at the most important aspect of your life and rate yourself compared to people within your circle of friends and within people worldwide.
This might looks something like this:
Circle of Friends
Worldwide
Personal
9.8/10
9.3/10
Intelligence
10/10
10/10
Looks
9/10
10/10
Personality
7/10
8/10
Health
8/10
9/10
Private Life
6.3/10
7.3/10
Friends
5/10
6/10
Love
7/10
8/10
Family
7/10
8/10
Professional Life
5/10
9/10
Wealth
5/10
9/10
Job Satisfaction
5/10
9/10
Status
5/10
9/10
Having finished the above rating and seeing that compared to the world I am in the top 25% percentile in pretty much every aspect and even within my group of friends, a lot of whom are much better of then the world average, I am still comparing very well in most aspects, it makes me wonder what reason I have to be discontent about any aspect.
17.4.3 Make inventory of our non-monetary assets
Making inventory of all our non-monetary assets helps us see that a financial situation that is less than ideal does not influence our overall wealth.
To do this technique we think how much money we would have to be paid to give up any of the following things:
Friends & family
Father/mother/ sister: How much money would have to receive, if at the same time you would have to lose your mother, your father or your sister, to be the same off. For example, would 1 million USD be enough for you to be willing to lose your mother?
Friends: How much money would you have to receive if that meant losing all your friends?
Wife, children: If you were paid 100,000 USD, would you be willing to let your child die?
Body parts & health condition
Eyesight: For how much money would you be willing to sacrifice your eyesight? 1 billion USD? Personally, I would not even want to sacrifice it for 1 billion USD.
Hearing: For how much money would you be willing to sacrifice your hearing?
Arm & legs: For how much money would you be willing to sacrifice your arms or your legs?
Being wheelchair bound: For how much money would you be willing to be permanently wheelchair bound?
Memory (Alzheimer): For how much money would you be willing to sacrifice your short-term memory so that you would forget everything as soon as you get to know it?
Diabetes: For how much money would you be willing to accept diabetes?
Personally, for most of the above question I would say there is no money, not even a billion USD, to compensate me for a loss of those intangible assets of mine. But that means , that the cumulative value is many billions, maybe trillions of USD for me. In other words, having 1 million USD more or less is totally irrelevant compared to all the non-monetary assets I already have. So my main focus should not be on getting more money, but on keeping the non-monetary assets I already have.
17.4.4 Ask if you would want to be a different person
For me this technique has been very helpful. I have applied it as follows: When I am really frustrated with my life situation, I ask if I would be willing to change my “terrible” life with another. I imagine that God would let me give back my life to him and randomly assign me to another body of the same age anywhere else in the world. In that case, I could end up in the body of the happiest person in the world, but also in the body of people much worse off. For me the answer is definitely that I would not want to take that gamble.
In fact, I realize that it is very hard to come up with a person, whom I would want to change my life with. True, some people have some aspects of their life better than me, but then I got many others aspects better than them. So in fact for me personally, not only would I not want to take the gamble to be assigned randomly another person’s life, but also would I have a hard time find anybody, with whom I would want to swap lives!
That tells me that, even though not everything is perfect in my life,it is totally irrational to be unhappy with it.
