The Inflation of Expectations
On the debt that can really keep you unhappy.
How much money would you need to be happy?
A loaded question, perhaps. There are two variables at play here. What is happiness? And how much money beyond our basic needs do we need to be happy?
For me, I don’t think I can reasonably pinpoint a salary that will keep me comfortable at night. I simply don’t know, at least not right now. Part of it is my youth as I don’t have a family, wife, or kids, but there is also a constant need for more, more, and more. I do; however, know the level of money would be judged relative to my happiness, which is derived from my expectations. Jimmy Carr put it quite well,
“Happiness is expectations exceeded.”
Happiness is based on your expectations. This in itself explains why New Year’s Eve never lives up to the hype. NYE is a night full of absurd expectations where it is the expectation, not the wish, that this will be the best night of our lives. Most of the time, NYE is just another night and when that clock hits midnight, the ball goes from being high in the air to the ground and that is really the only thing that changes. NYE is expected to be a magical night but often, it is nothing spectacular as meeting the expectations laid forth for the night is nearly impossible.
We set ourselves up for disappointment when we have these uber-inflated expectations and naturally, they aren’t met. We get that raise at work and walk away disappointed. We finish the project we have been working on for months and end up frustrated. It’s all rooted in an inflation of expectations. Always wanting more but seemingly, never getting it and never being satisfied or proud of where we are now.
The Wall Street Journal did a survey asking people how much more their salary would need to be for them to be happy. Unsurprisingly, people said, on average, a 50% increase. There’s nothing wrong with the idea of wanting and needing more. It’s human nature. There is something wrong with always raising your expectations and demanding more. Consistency exists for always needing more to be happy. It is an illusion that always appears at the same distance forward.
Life in a perpetual state of always needing and wanting more is unhealthy. The expectations rise with the progress. There is a need to ascend. You set a goal today, it will be achieved in six months, and by the time it happens, there is no joy because over the past six months, it has become the expectation. If you took a moment, you from six months ago would probably be pretty happy that you saw the goal through and achieved it in six months. However, today it is the baseline because we have come to expect it as we progressed.
That in itself explains why we feel the constant need to always have a larger salary. By the time we get the salary we wanted, it has become the expectation and all the hard work, sweat equity, and long nights have morphed into an ideal of this is where we expected to be not this is where we are proud to be. All influenced by our expectations.
Life is lived relative to your expectations. The most miserable fan bases are often the most iconic. There is an expectation to win no matter how terrible your team may be.
The Cleveland Browns have long been one of the most miserable fan bases in the NFL, even professional sports for that matter. They had an infamous stretch of misery that included going 1-31 across two seasons, losing 19 straight games, 12 consecutive losing seasons, and an 18-year playoff drought. Pretty terrible. Paper bags on the heads and empty stadiums became the norm.
Safe to say no one expects their team to be this bad but there was an expectation to at least win a few games. Everything is judged relative to expectations. There is a reason why Yankees fans are never happy, Kentucky basketball fans want Calipari fired, and Texas A&M is willing to pay Jimbo Fisher $75 million to go away and not coach the team anymore, expectations.
Expectations are a debt that must be repaid before any happiness can be achieved. It is the bare minimum necessary. Expectations are so high every year for these teams that coaches and players have to achieve extraordinary things just to break even. When results are playoff appearances, an NCAA tournament bid, or a nine-win season in the toughest conference in football, fans are displeased. The debt of the expectations was never repaid. The bare minimum was never hurdled and the season was a disaster. A championship or bust mentality is one of frustration. To always expect to win a championship is unrealistic, which is why these fans are always largely miserable.
Charlie Munger, RIP, once said,
“The first rule of a happy life is low expectations. If you have unrealistic expectations, you’re going to be miserable your whole life. You want to have reasonable expectations and take life’s results good and bad as they happen with a certain amount of stoicism.”
Yes, low expectations don’t seem certainly ideal as it feels like a cop-out and not trying to maximize your potential. I am certainly one who sets high expectations for myself but I also try to be reasonable. It is important to realize that most outcomes come from small actions where little thought may be given, so it’s normal if most of what you do doesn’t work out. Hitting something once out of five attempts can sometimes be the pinnacle in a lot of things – championships, investments, or life. We are all bound to lose and the only path to winning occasionally is accepting that failure is normal. This way it is easier to keep your expectations reasonable but still maintain the drive, tenacity, and hunger to move forward.
A constant inflation of expectations and feeding into the mirage that always appears at the same distance forward is dangerous. Dangerous because that is when expectations inflate with progress. It is important to establish reasonable beliefs of what you can achieve because if expectations are always inflated with results, you will forever feel the same after putting in extra work.
Appreciate you reading.
-Scantron
Scantron’s Selections - A few things I loved this week.
Gio Valiante went on The Knowledge Project and talked about resilience, the five ways to win, and his time spent working with athletes to help them gain a mental edge. Super interesting and anyone who loves sports will probably love the episode.
While I agree to some degree, if they did not print so much money as often then we would not be caught up in the endless cycle of production and consumption. Common sense.