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