There's Not Enough Stuff in This Minimalist Template

A room. A guy. A comment. "There's not enough stuff in this minimalist template!"

Here are some thoughts about expectations. I've heard people say that the richer you are, the more likely you are to be depressed. Is that true? I dunno. I do think mild depression that we often complain of can be directly tied to our expectations though. (This is not referring to severe or chronic depression, as those often have various physiological and environmental factors.)

An experience I had while I was in college (and still under the illusion that I would be a good engineer) illustrates my point. I emerged from a test disappointed, since I thought things had not gone very well (some of the material took me unawares). To my surprise, I hadn't done as poorly as originally expected. In fact, I had done much worse!

My initial reaction was disbelief. A 50-something on a test I'd been expecting an 85-90% on? Disbelief congealed into depression until the following class period. The professor announced the class average, and I realized I'd actually done pretty well.

What is the difference between Day 1's depression and Day 2's consolation? Expectation. I was NOT ok feeling inferior to a majority of my classmates because I thought my brains should bring me "good" grades. Somehow, that expectation of "good" grades was met when I realized I was dumb but my classmates were even dumber than me (I'm not sure how that is consoling on any level).

Another example: while I was searching my heart to discover if I believed in God, I often wondered "Why doesn't God just appear in front of me?" As I continued this search, though, I realized that my expectations of God were quite removed from the truth. I had seemingly decided that I knew what God should do, while a fundamental concept of Christianity is accepting both the what and the when of things He chooses to give to us. This is a "not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42) sort of thing.

So what can we do to make our expectations reasonable? Each of us views the world through the lens of our experiences, so each view is different.

Destroying all expectation does as much harm as a false expectation. I've found the best way to approach things is to recognize when my expectations stop providing motivation and instead cause myself or those around me pain. When such recognitions come, I let go of things that are is unimportant, and find something else to occupy my mind.

The question is, where is that template....