[Naynay99]

Hey. So I was just thinking about how I tend to always have these grand ideas of what **** is going to be like, and it almost never lives up to the picture that I have in my head.

It's like that free ice cream with your meal that you get as a kid. I invision a banana split with hot fudge and sprinkles and the waitress brings me out a freezer burned ice pop. Yeah. Let down.

Or holidays like Xmas. I alway get excited leading up to it, imagining the lights and the tree and the music and great food and smiling faces opening packages and reminiscing about the past. But usually it ends up with lots of people stressed out, crowded parking lots, burned cookies, crappy gifts, and lots of family arguing with each othe

I suppose this happens to everyone? I think it's probably just the fact that every time it doesn't pan out like I anticipated it to, I am actually SURPRISED. Which leads to Disappointment, feeling let down, another anticlimactic event. Just pondering this because I have once again experienced the reality and it did not come anywhere close to matching up with the expectation. There is a great scene in "500 days of summer" about expectation vs reality that i can relate to. That and when the main character starts singing that smiths song "please Please please let me get what i wants this time... great scenes. Anyway, I digress.

I wonder if maybe sometimes I enjoy the anticipation leading up to a future event more than the actual event. People say to just lower your expectations and you won't get disappointed. I don't know how to do that, and I'm not sure that I want to live like that. I don't know if would still be alive if I didn't keep hoping and expecting that things will end up actually being as f$ckng awesome as I imagine one of these days.

Maybe I would rather expect the best and get let down every time than expect nothing. Which is stupid. I am an idiot. I don't know what my problem is. But I always have these ridiculously high expectations of myself and other people and of life and situations. And maybe that's why I am never satisfied with things as they are. I always want more, better, different.

[Moose72]

Love your ice cream example!

I don't like it when family gatherings go bad either. Boo! Hiss!

This is a really interesting question, naynay. You're right, the answer seems so simple. I only share this in a very mixed way -- a few things I'll get that way about (usually involving doing something special and hoping the receipient is happy and bummed when they don't give a crap), but mostly I'm in the "don't get your hopes up then you can only be pleasantly surprised if something actually goes well" camp. And so am kind of trying to do the opposite -- to have a little more hope in how things might go. So there are a few things I'm holding in this state. One is huge. It's hard, but I'm trying.

But all these things are connected somehow. I'm curious to hear if some folks that have dealt with this in therapy jump in. The last part you wrote seems to indicate perfectionistic tendencies. That sure seems like it'd be involved (I've got them too, but I catch myself sometimes -- say (out loud, lol) "Getting obsessive. Stop! Good enough!"
It actually works sometimes.

[Naynay99]

@innerzone- good point about the perfectionism. Yeah I do have those tendencies. I like your "good enough!" Strategy. Will have to try that.

But yeah re expectation- I'm not sure if I am just ridiculously optimistic or if I am being delusional...
I do know that even though I have no historical evidence in my life supporting it, there is a small part of me that still seems to have this never ending hope that one day things will work out just like I imagined them.

But I suppose lowering my expectations to be more aligned with reality would be the smart thing to do. I guess the fact that i recognize that i do this is a start. Maybe I will bring it up with my T this week.
Anyway, have a goodnight all.

[Unrigged64072835]

For me it's more the opposite: plan for the worst and hope for the best. I like being surprised.