Death and taxes are inevitable. So is crushing disappointment. This is life, after all. Any exposure to any media for any of amount of time has the troublesome trait of tuning your expectations high, until you’ve lived long enough and seen enough to set them at a more reasonable level. Like zero. Without expectation you cannot be disappointed, but until you learn to appropriately curb your enthusiasm, disappointment abounds. This really isn’t as stark as it sounds though. While your levels of excitement take a hit, your potential for experiencing pleasure and surprise dramatically increase. That’s gotta be worth something, no?
With your reasonable expectations set to zero, a shitty work day can’t hurt you as much while an awesome work day can make your week, or month, or year, until the next awesome workday. Dates will be fine if they’re terrible while the great ones will exceptionally stick out. Conversation is conversation but great conversation will be stellar. The adage “up only!” made popular by crypto enthusiasts comes to mind. When you can set your expectations no lower than nothing, experiences can only take you up, if they don’t hug the floor. And those experiences that do hug the floor? Well, you expected them to be terrible anyway, so no disappointment.
Life is terrible, but it’s not all bad. I think if you expect it to be terrible with an eye for the good stuff, the good stuff is appreciable far better for being the good stuff than if you keep hoping the good stuff happens and are regularly disappointed when it does not. Existential much? Maybe. Practical? Absolutely.
There are plenty ways to approach life and this may not be the best, but it’s level-headed.
Anyway, I saw that it was @violetlatte’s birthday a couple days of ago, so I cooked this up while procrastinating in Procreate some more:
