expectation
Prompt
Write an essay on "expectation" in my voice, drawing on 3 ideas from Awareness - Mello_et_al, Meditations - Aurelius_et_al, The Magic of Thinking Big - Schwartz. Take a clear position. Don't summarize.
Material (3 reviewed ideas)
De Mello warns that the moment you let yourself feel good when people approve of you, you are preparing to feel bad when they disapprove, so living to meet others' expectations is a quiet bondage and the real relief is no longer needing to impress anyone.
![[Awareness - Mello_et_al#^ref-25388]] ![[Awareness - Mello_et_al#^ref-52535]]
Applied to social friction, the control principle becomes a discipline against anger: when someone wrongs you, recognize they have simply erred in their conception of good and evil, which converts indignation into pity and forgiveness.
![[Meditations - Aurelius_et_al#^ref-36747]]
This is the book's founding premise, opening the entire argument: belief is not a result of capability but its precondition, so deciding you can do something is what activates the mind to find a way.
![[The Magic of Thinking Big - Schwartz#^ref-13868]]