@stahrgeyzer

I thought of something else . . . The famous psychiatrist, Aaron T. Beck, wondered why there is often a disparity between a person's situation and their ability to be generally at peace and have a joy of living. This perplexed him for some time. Sometimes people who seem to have everything are miserable and people who are in generally miserable conditions seem to have a joy of living.

Beck thought he made a breakthrough when he discovered the power that "expectations" have over people. He thought that people process information through the lenses of their expectations.

Certain kinds of expectations tend to engender a certain definite set of moods and emotions. If a person is a perfectionist, for example , they tend to "expect" perfection or near perfection of themselves, others, things and events in the world. Since things are never totally perfect, this "expectation" tends to generate feelings like disappointment, aggravation, frustration, anger, sadness. joyless striving, and in extreme cases, hopelessness.

It is not that the world is making such individuals feel these moods and emotions, it is that their expectations about the world that are behind these moods and feelings.

Beck believed it would be odd if perfectionism did not generate these kinds of moods since for a perfectionist, everything is seen through the lens of "it could be better, but it isn't better" or the stronger "it should or must be better but isn't better."

Beck found that in certain parts of the world where people are quite impoverished and in poor situations and circumstances there can often be found many, many individuals who are generally at peace about things, who generally have a joy of living.

He discovered that such people "expect" things to be imperfect so they are not so hard on themselves or others. They generally see things through the lens of "could be worse, but isn't worse." This attitude tends to generate a different set of emotions and moods: peace, relaxation, appreciation, feeling lucky, gratitude, joy . . . in other words . . . happy moods and feelings.

A person is not always aware of the expectations that they burden reality with. It is almost like a deep computer program that is running in the background. Perfectionists process information this way: "If I was perfect, I could be happy. If he, she, it, they were perfect, I could be happy. If things and events in the world were perfect, I could be happy."

The faulty logic is this: If things were perfect, I would be happy. Things are not perfect, I cannot be happy. But there is a hidden premise here: I expect things to be perfect and will not allow myself to rest or be happy until they are perfect.

I think the ancient Stoic philosopher, Epictetus put this very well: "We do not see the world the way it is, we see the world the way we are."

The world is just the world. It just is. Some things can be changed. Some can't. Often a good change has unforeseen negative consequences because the finite can never be made Infinite. Flaws are moved around, not eliminated.

There is an ancient Chinese story about a sage who encountered a boy on a beach who was crying. When the sage asked the boy why he was crying, the boy said: "I put some red ink in the ocean and now the ocean is ruined." This is perfectionism.

I notice this a lot in journalism. Since nothing is absolutely perfect, it is always possible to find a flaw in someone or something. Political parties use this to constantly generate moods of outrage in their audience. Since nothing is every totally perfect this gives journalists way of always generating some "bad news" that their audience craves.

Badness is relatively rare, which is why it is often newsworthy. Today a plane crashed, a train derailed, there was a tornado here, someone went out and did a monstrous thing. We are subjected to this all the time if we are consumers of news.

What the news never says is this: today 10,000 aircraft took off and landed safely. Today 99% of trains did not derail. Today most of the earth was not ravaged by a tornado. Today one billion young people went to school without doing horrendous acts of violence. Today most people did not commit a violent felony . . . most people being billions of people.

Because such things are generally the norm, they don't make the news. We say: "Those things don't count." But we fail to see that those things don't count because we don't count them. I think this is what Beck was trying to get at.

Beck believed that "expectations" are very strong things. Not perhaps as strong as demands, but harder than wishes. To wish is a softer approach than an expectation. "I wish people drove more courteously." A frustrated wish is not as devastating as a frustrated expectation.

A wish is soft enough that it can lead people to take steps to change things that they can change. A demand like "perfectionism" can lead to inertia and procrastination. If I can't do it perfectly, why try?

Perhaps this is what is behind that old saying: "The perfect is the enemy of the good."

What do you think?