Expectations, narratives and choices are some of the superpowers we can use to give our lives direction, purpose and impact. But like all powers these superpowers come with downsides, risks and consequences we should be aware of before using them. No power worth having can be used for beneficial goals only, and all powers have dark and undesirable side-effects when used indiscriminately. That shouldn’t stop us from developing our powers, however, it just means we must understand the pitfalls and downsides, learn how to avoid them and how to spot them as early as possible so we can take corrective action.

Using power means deliberately trying to change the world to our liking. Changing the world – even in a very small way – creates resistance. The world itself has inertia: it takes energy to overcome the status quo, as the status quo is often the most stable state at that moment. Once the world starts moving, more and more people will start to notice and have their personal resistance triggered, as they, too, may like the world as it is right now and prefer it to stay just where it is.

One absolutely necessary step in our journey is to make sure we are not knowingly hurting other people. The more we develop our powers, the more important such an ethical baseline becomes. Not that we can always avoid hurting people, the world is too big and complex to accurately predict all consequences of our actions. Yet as soon as we know or even suspect that our actions may adversely affect other people it is time to slow down, reflect and consider other ways of moving forward.

Such an ethical baseline is there for our own good, too, not just to protect others. For me, the whole point of personal growth is to help us lead more fulfilling and satisfying lives. Sustained fulfilment and happiness can only come from caring about other people and from trying to contribute positively to their lives. That is the very foundation of the social side of our nature. Gaining advantage over other people at their expense may give temporary satisfaction, sure enough, but in the long run this satisfaction will fade and turn into something far less positive.

We are all part of the social fabric and our well-being is inextricably tied up with the good of the groups we belong to. We must, therefore, always consider the bigger picture when we design our own journey forward. And get it wrong from time to time. That is perfectly OK, as we should not expect to have the complete picture, ever. But as soon as we become aware of any damage or pain caused by our actions, that’s when we stop, reflect and adjust our narrative. That is how we learn and grow as human beings.

So, let’s take a look at each of the powers I’ve blogged about before and explore how to use them safely and effectively. Even though their dark sides will never completely disappear, awareness is more than half the battle. Properly equipped with warnings and guidance we should be good to go, and start taking control of our destiny.

The Burden of Expectations

Expectations are a powerful force shaping our interactions with the people around us. Our instinctive urge to meet expectations is strong and tends to push us right to where we are expected to be. If those expectations happen to be aligned with our own sense of direction and purpose in life it is perfectly possible to find happiness and fulfilment doing what is expected of us by others. If they are not aligned, however, instead of helping us, those expectations become a counter-force, pushing us away from the life we want to lead and the goals we set. Misaligned expectations are a burden: a relentless force of resistance we constantly need to push against to move forward.

But proper alignment is only part of the solution. In spite of their awesome power to propel us forward, expectations can run into real-world factors we have little or no direct control over. We cannot alter or ignore the laws of nature, for instance, and even the laws of society are hard to escape from. We may have a virtually unlimited capacity for learning and growth, but we are all born with certain talents and proclivities, and lacking others, so it is not necessarily true we can become anything we want to. Someone who is tone-deaf is unlikely to become a musical genius, and a small, frail person is not exactly heavy-weight boxing material. When our own expectations and those that other people have of us become unrealistic or ignore our actual situation and true potential they can become a heavy burden and put us under a lot of stress.

There is a deeper lesson to be learned here, one that requires awareness, self-knowledge and some out-of-the-box thinking. As a general rule, when we become aware of the burden of the expectations we are under – whether self-imposed or from our environment – and we discover that the source of the stress is the unrealistic nature of those expectations, we should not immediately discard those expectations. The exact form of what is expected may not be possible, but maybe there is a way to reframe the aspiration. Maybe there is a way to retain the journey and its ultimate goal by changing some of our assumptions and interpretations of what the end-point would look like. We may never become birds (unless genetic engineering takes a gigantic leap forward in the next few decades) but there are many ways we can learn to fly. We may never learn to play a musical instrument, but we could invent a whole new way of creating music only we could come up with. Just remember this rule of thumb when examining the expectations we live under: when they feel impossible, unrealistic or internally contradictory, first look at the assumptions they come with. In many cases our stress is caused by the limiting assumptions we associate with our expectations, more than by the nature of those expectations themselves.

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A more subtle, but no less pervasive, shadow-side of expectations lies in our mind’s tendency to compare our situations against the ideals encapsulated in the expectations we are driven by, and almost by necessity falling short of them. The real world is never perfect and the more idealised the expectations we compare ourselves against have become, the more our minds will conclude we must be failing, since our lives do not (completely) match our expectations.

 

This expectation ‘gap’ is a constant source of unhappiness and suffering in the world, even though it is just a game our minds play with us. Expectations, as powerful as they are, are not real, nor should they ever be taken as absolutes. They are a direction, a force to help us move closer to where we want to go. We may never get there, but that is not the point. As long as we are getting closer we are making progress, which is all that matters. Letting our expectations drive us forward without driving us crazy requires a mental balancing-act between relentlessly pursuing our ideals and being emotionally detached from actually achieving them. It’s not that we don’t want to achieve them, far from it, it’s just that we are at peace with not actually reaching them, as long we have the satisfaction of getting closer and becoming more aligned with our own narrative and journey in the process.

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Finally, it is important to remember that expectations, like our lives, are not static. They evolve over time, through a combination of what we put in – our words and actions – and how we interact with everybody that relates to us: through gossip, social media, and their words and actions combined. Any interaction taking place in the social spaces we are part of can modify people’s expectations of us.

Expectations, therefore, require constant maintenance. To stay on course, we need to make sure the expectations that drive us still match our own desired journey and destination. Where they don’t, we need to step up and take action to correct that. This means we must actively monitor how other people behave towards us, so we have a good idea of how they see us and what they expect from us. We must then use this information to seed modified expectations against any changes we observe, as early as possible, to prevent unwanted expectations from lodging in people’s minds.

As with striving to close the gap between expectations and reality, this process is never finished and the alignment is never perfect. And in the same way that not reaching perfection does not invalidate our striving for it, not completely managing all expectations that influence us should not deter us from continuing to work on improving their alignment. One way to look at this part of the process is as a dance we engage in with the people in our social circles: a dance to music that we produce collectively with moves and steps we invent together as we go. Part of our social nature is our ability to synchronise with each other by engaging in social activities together. Managing collective expectations taps into this ability. In the same way that we can enjoy the dance for the sake of dancing, we can learn to enjoy managing expectations as something that enriches our lives and energises our journey.

(To be continued)

The ability to choose is an essential human capability. We make choices all the time. Every move or non-move is a choice. Every reaction, or lack thereof, is a choice. We cannot escape choice: being endowed with discernment and decision-making faculties, every time we become aware of a possible choice, we are forced to choose. Even deciding not to choose is a choice, so choice is inevitable.

The inevitability of choice may feel like a burden to us. It means we cannot just prance around and follow our impulses and ignore the consequences. Because we have the power of choice, we are – inescapably – responsible for the consequences of those choices (or non-choices) we make. We may even feel guilty when things don’t turn out as we expected and our choices inadvertently hinder or hurt other people. Guilt, however, is a negative emotion which makes us less responsible for the consequences of our actions, not more, as it tends to paralyse us. Instead of observing and judging the consequences and then responding in a way that maximises the positives and minimises the negatives, we get so obsessed with the negatives we fail to respond at all.

The beauty of choice, and the antidote to guilt, is not that we always get it right and that we never cause harm with the choices we make, but that we always have the power and the opportunity to make better choices next time. Choice empowers us to learn from our mistakes and keep trying to make better choices. And every time we make a deliberate choice to do better we exert that power and give a new twist to the world. A twist that is ours, since we chose to do so.

Deliberate choices are those moments where we stop, take stock, and purposefully continue in a way that is in harmony with our beliefs, aspirations, and purpose. Such choices become inflection points: from the infinite variety that was possible before we made the choice most of them will now fall away, no longer possible. Our choice has just reduced the infinite complexity. It is still infinitely complex – that is the nature of infinity – but we have pruned it; bent it – ever so slightly – to our taste and desire.

What amplifies this power is when our choices are not just deliberate but also consistent. By making consistent choices – which doesn’t mean always making the same choices, but basing them on the same guiding principles or framework – our influence on the world becomes a shaping force with increasing power and effect. A series of small but consistent choices are like the pushes one gives to a swing: they may not be powerful on their own, but timed right and aimed accurately they build momentum and make the swing go far and wide.

The narrative we spoke of before is a powerful framework for making consistent choices. Using our own narrative in this way gives us two tools to work with.

• It gives us a framework for evaluating the choices we have. For every option we can see we can ask ourselves: “is this helping me further along my journey, or is it taking me away from it?” In most cases, checking against our own narrative helps us rank our choices in order of alignment.Usually we would want to go with the most aligned choice, but it is advisable to do a reality check first to see if there are no consequences or side-effects that would make this choice less desirable. But in general the preferred choice would be the most aligned one, unless it presents seriously undesirable consequences.
• It gives us a way to assess the outcome of our choices by regularly asking ourselves: “Am I progressing on my journey? Do I see improvement or progress in those areas most relevant to me and the narrative I am committed to live to?”

Even if our choices do not immediately lead to the desired outcomes – and they often won’t, as the terrain ahead of us is largely unknown and we need to explore and learn before we become better at making the right choices – with the narrative to guide us, by deliberately making our choices we are empowering ourselves to be the author of our own story, the director of our own drama, as well as the main actor in it.

That’s the power of choice: shaping the world to the best of our abilities to match the narrative we want to live by, instead of being a powerless, passive passenger and mostly observer of world that passes us by.