I’d like you to meet two friends.
Matt is a drug addict. He’s used and sold a variety of illegal drugs, and been involved in the crime associated with that lifestyle. He’s been homeless, taken advantage of friends and family, and skirted along the edges of society for many of his nearly thirty years.
Bret is a skilled self-taught bike mechanic. He began dismantling bikes as a kid, and soon was the go-to guy in the neighborhood. In high school, even adults with high-end bikes came to Bret for help with difficult mechanical issues. He still offers his services free of charge to friends who need help. Most evenings you’ll find him either tinkering with someone else’s bike or building one from second hand parts.
Now I have a question–do you have a mental image of my two friends? If I took you to meet them, would you have a set of expectations?
Of course you would. We have this tendency to create preconceived expectations before we enter a situation, and those expectations color the experience.
Despite best intentions, we might expect Matt to be manipulative or untrustworthy. We might even be a bit afraid of him. If he said or did something that offended us, we’d probably think that was about what we expected.
We’d be more inclined to think Bret’s a good guy. We might even look for a way to support what he’s doing. If Bret turned out to be a jerk, we’d likely be disappointed.
Now suppose I told you Matt and Bret are the same person. I altered names, but other details are accurate.
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Expectations can be dream-killers. When I create an expectation, I decide in advance how it’s going to happen. So if it meets expectations, I shrug and say Ho Hum. And if it happens differently I’m likely to be disappointed.
It’s entirely possibly that an alternate outcome will be better than what I expected. But I’ll never see that through my disappointment.
Better to approach the dream as a story waiting to be written. You can’t know where the story wants to take you until you write a few chapters.
It’s not a good idea to write the ending before you know the story.
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