For most of my adult life, I have struggled with how I see people and how they see me. It seems to be a lack of mutual understanding. I just assume that people want to grow and better themselves and I never understand how people can settle for the mundane and become convinced that there is nothing new that they could possible want to see or learn.
I feel that most people that I meet and work with are uninspired and lack passion about life. They fail to get excited about anything that does not involve themselves directly and intimately, like sex, food, cars, sports, sex with food while watching NASCAR, and Dancing with the Stars. (I really do not get the last one, but hear about that damn show all the time. It is like some kind of national drug that everyone is taking.)
Then one day last week I had a bit of an epiphany; I suddenly knew a way to massively lower my frustration levels in a way that is not only socially acceptable, but a method that is commonly used every day in business and society. This method is even legislated in some state’s public schools. With this method I might finally be able to relax and not get concerned when one of my fellow humans goes out of his way to demonstrate his total inability to think past the end of his nose.
“What is this miracle method?” you may ask. (At least I hope you ask. If you don’t ask then there seems to be little reason for you to continue reading this at all. If you didn’t ask you have my permission to stop now and go back to looking up the latest news about American Idol.)
Simply put: LOWER YOUR EXPECTATIONS!
Think about this for a moment. No more mucking about with challenging goals and deadlines. No more hard work trying to achieve realistic endeavors. There is no need to get your ire up over your friend’s or employee’s lack of concern. It does not matter that the project that means millions of dollars and possibly your company’s future is seriously behind schedule if you just lower your expectations! Easy!
Study? Why? Teachers are required by law to promote kids with their peers, or the kid might become socially maladjusted. “It does not matter that Johnny can’t read, we lowered our expectations so he could graduate with his friends. It’s the law. It’s called peer promotion.” Easy!
The entire world economy nearly collapsed and most nations are struggling to create some solution in order to not have to either feed or kill their populations. Our nation has amassed a terrible debt in order to not have a total collapse. Our recovery is struggling while we spend dollars on stupid things like giving free money and food to people that are not willing to do anything for it and supporting artists that make macaroni sculpture for some public square in Oregon.* What should we do? Simple! Lower our expectations! Why should we be concerned that this nation’s debt is horribly out of control? Just let the future pay for it!! Everything will be all right if we just put the right spin on things and don’t look the reality of the situation in the face. Easy!
We were arguably once the greatest nation on earth, dedicated to ideals and to being an inspiration to others all over the globe. Now we seem to be becoming the victim nation, fighting within ourselves and subsidizing everyone because we seem to not be willing to make hard decisions and instead try to compromise everything. We, as a nation, have lowered our expectations. Easy!
Welcome to the future! I hope that I can lower my expectations enough to learn to like it.
*Ok. I made that last one up. But there was an ‘artist’ in Albuquerque that got over a quarter of a million dollars for making a giant statue of a cactus from surplus fuel tanks from airplanes. Said artist did not even pay for the fuel tanks, the property it was put on, or the electricity to illuminate it with a cheap special effect from the 1960s. It is a nice gig if you can get it.
