Expectations Within Relationships

anyways

uh hi my name is gun and today the topic

i’ll be talking about

is a very obvious one it’s something

that’s in your life it’s something

that’s in your mindset all the time

but we don’t realize how impactful it is

or how important it is or how much it

could hurt us

until we really sit down and think

you know how much expectations

am i putting on myself and others

and obviously my topic is expectations

it’s

more specifically expectations on

relationships

on friendships on people close to us

and how it could really hurt us okay

obviously to give my speech some

credibility

i did some research right and i stumbled

upon this article

it’s an article written by john a

johnson he’s a psychologist at penn

state university

and the title is the psychology of

expectations

surprise anyways this

article it states a study done by jean

piaget

and those of you who don’t know who

jean-pierre is

he’s a pretty renowned psychologist he’s

done theories on cognitive development

in you know both children and adults and

if you’ve read articles about

psychology or if you’ve taken a course

about psychology

you probably know who he is anyways

a specific study done by him is

mentioned in this article

and that’s what i’ll be talking about

right now but disclaimer

it will sound confusing at first but

it will make sense as i go on so

the name of this theory is magical

thinking

it’s you know before i explain what it

is

uh i want to give you some fundamentals

on

our thought processes as humans see

if you want to draw on two thought

processes one is primary

a primary thought process and the second

one is secondary thought process

primary thought process are in our minds

when we are born to the age of 7. that’s

your primary thought process

and what is primary thought process it’s

a thought process

where you think everything is fantasy

like imaginative

you know have you ever seen a kid play

with uh

toys models action figures

and they seem to have more fun with it

than we would

you know we look at it and it’s like

that’s that’s silly

but the kid out there is not no

it’s cool too right that’s

their primary thought process you know

taking control

they’re more imaginative now we get to

the secondary thought process

the secondary thought process is what

you have it’s what i have

as teenagers as adults

or i i hope you guys have it

it’s something that involves morality

consequences rational thinking logic

it’s what you develop after the age of

seven

right so it’s what our

minds use to make decisions we look at

consequences

we look at the morality of the situation

how will it work out and that’s our

secondary thought process

anyways i’ll get into magical thinking

and

what magical thinking is is it’s

it comes with primary thought process

it’s the same essence

it’s more of a sub category magical

thinking is when

here’s an example it’s when a child

looks out the window and sees it raining

you know he sees the clouds pouring rain

and he thinks to himself

yeah it’s raining because i wanted to

or he sees an accident happening outside

and he thinks

yeah it’s because i want it to happen

see children under the age of seven

since they’re still

in their primary thought process they

still have

this term of egocentrism they still

think

things happen because they wanted to

they still have a very cursed

first person point of view and that’s

what magical thinking is

magical thinking is when you think

something

and you’re convinced that it affects the

physical world

so you know this might be confusing up

to this point

but how does natural thinking

tie into expectations see

magical thinking is said to only happen

with primary thinking

right but recent studies have shown that

it doesn’t even as adults we still

magically think

we still have this theory in our head

look at superstition law of attraction

manifestation we all still have a part

of us

that think these things might be true

things out of the ordinary things that

have no causation no

evidence so linking it

to expectations is

obviously these two sound different

right

magical thinking you’re sitting here and

you’re thinking hey

i mean it’s something a child would do i

never think like that

i’m not silly i’m not dumb i’m not young

but you’re sitting in the same chair

and on a day-to-day basis you still

expect things out of people

i expect things you expect things it’s

not major

it’s normal right it seems like a more

mature thing to do

but is that correct

expectations is predicting something

another person is going to do

it’s predicting something a different

person is going to do

someone with different values different

morals

and different standards we’re predicting

what they’re thinking without asking

them we’re predicting

what they’re going to do in the future

this is not a superpower we don’t have

that

so expectations and natural thinking in

theory

are similar they’re the same thing in

essence

anyways onto my main point

it’s the point that expectations can

really be poison

it can be irrational it can cause

disappointment

and worst of all it can cause resentment

on hate

well when you look at when i look at

something

in my own backyard in my own community

i see a big stereotype with asians

we have strict parents right and

you know there’s the same uh you’re

either an engineer doctor

ceo or you’re disappointed

it’s sad but it’s true i see this

mindset in a lot of places i go

in a lot of families i see oh luckily

not my own hospital i hope

anyways it’s unfair for the parents

to expect things out of their children

see parents in a lot of ways in

there’s a lot of parents that expect

things out of their children before they

were even born

they made plans for their children

before they were even conceived maybe

isn’t doesn’t this sound like magical

thinking doesn’t this sound like the

parents predicting the future

every step of the way where the children

is going to go

do not realize that the children child

is going to be

a different person than them see

this is appears for magical thinking it

causes

pressure it causes disappointment

and if your body is not strong enough it

causes resentment

it’s unhealthy even if the parents

expectations

no intentions for those expectations are

good

it doesn’t disprove the matter

that it still causes heartache for both

sides

and the child doesn’t exceed

or even get to the expectations set

anyways to a more generalized point

see when we look at relationships in

general

there’s this unspoken rule the rule of

give and take

right i give you something

you take it and then you give back

saying it would make you a jerk

basically because you’re like

i gave you this you should be giving

back but

it’s an unsaid rule see

but my point is when you give something

and expecting something back that’s also

another form of magical thinking

because we’re different people we’re not

robots

here’s a clear example

how friendships are real these days at

least i see in my generation

is we listen to each other’s problems a

lot

we call till 1am we listen

we listen we listen and let’s say friend

a listens to from these problems a lot

he just sits there and listens to

friends being strong friendly has bronze

with his girlfriend

his family he’s great friend a is always

there to listen

but when friend a’s a wants to

express what’s going on in front of a’s

life

friendly is not there to listen i have a

question

this puts a strain on the friendship

doesn’t it it causes

disappointment why didn’t fern b

give back the same effort to friend a

well front a has this tunnel vision

on the expectations that friend b has to

give back exactly

the amount of effort and exactly the

same thing as given

a b in a lot of times

we’re different people we have different

values so friend b

could give back to friend a by doing

something else

by driving friendly school by cooking

him meals

my friend aids so focus sole television

on this expectation that friendly has to

listen to his thoughts

the way he lives differently he’s from

see this is magical thinking

friendly is not wrong because he has

different values

different things he focuses on

different ways to pay back

friendships are not are not super black

and white where we can just

expect things out of each other

this causes receptor and as you’ve seen

maybe on my poster

uh this is a quote called

expectations are pre-mediated resentment

and i agree with this see when you

expect something out of someone

out of your friends parents child

in most cases it causes resentment

when you expect something out of someone

you expect

the perfect image of that person

in your mind i don’t think that’s

correct

let’s go in conclusion and i hope you

guys were listening

what you should take back from this

speech is

a changed mindset

even obviously even i struggle changing

my mindset but

this basically states that if

you can’t control things around you

why do you if people are different why

do you keep expecting

predicting things out of people

we have different values we have

different mindsets

that’s why we’re different that’s what

makes us special

so change your mindset instead of giving

to people expecting something back

don’t when you give money

when you listen to their bonds when you

give birthday gifts when you drive them

places

you don’t expect anything back

you do it with your heart you do it with

your passion you do it with your

motivation

so you don’t get disappointed and the

most

important thing you should take back is

to love what you do

when you love what you do you’re not

you’re never expecting anything back

from anyone

do good things out for the sake of doing

it

enjoy the journey not the destination

thank you