Author | Insight muye
Anchor | Fan Deng Reading · Anthony
Self-media people have told a story.
Xiao Lai met a friend who was a sales manager who often accompanied customers to drink and eat for the sake of performance.
Some customers have known each other for a long time, cooperated more times, and the relationship has naturally become closer.
There are several well-connected customers who will privately ask him out to eat together.
Everyone talked about the wine, drank very hard, and chatted very freely.
Therefore, in the mind of the sales manager, these people are not only customers, but also friends who push their hearts.
Later, the sales manager left the company and prepared to start his own business.
He was expecting to use his accumulated connections to do a big job, but what happened next caught him off guard.
Since he left his post, those so-called "friends" have never asked him to dinner, and even if he takes the initiative to contact each other, he will be treated coldly by the other party.
Some people have even deleted all his contact information after learning of his departure.
One of the "friends" was more sincere, and before deleting his WeChat, he answered his doubts:
"I drink with you to get the lowest offer from your company. Now that you're out of the job, we don't have to drink together anymore. ”
After the sales manager listened, his heart was like ashes.
There is also a story from Zhihu netizen @ Ni Lan.
At the beginning of the year, Ni Lan wanted to buy a house, and the down payment was still tens of thousands of yuan, so she thought of finding friends to make a good deal.
The first thing she thought of was one of her college roommates, whom she had the best relationship with during college.
Her roommate had borrowed money from her two years ago when she bought a house, and she had borrowed fifty thousand yuan to her roommate at that time.
She also knew that her roommate's career development in the past two years had also been very successful, and she must have spare money in her hand.
Ni Lan dialed the roommate's phone with great anticipation, and the roommate on the phone was still as enthusiastic as ever.
But when Ni Lan proposed to borrow money, the other party suddenly began to become silent.
Ni Landa assured that the money I used for emergency, it will not be used for a long time, and I will definitely be able to repay you in the second half of the year.
What Ni Lan thought in her heart at that time was that after saying so, her roommate would definitely not refuse, and she had borrowed money from her before buying a house.
As a result, the roommate said that it was really unfortunate that I recently wanted to buy a house, and I wanted to change to a larger house, and I really didn't have any money on hand.
Ni Lan listened, like a frosted eggplant, and instantly fell.
Someone once asked: What is the secret of happiness?
There is a high praise answer: never expect too much from anyone.
Like the two stories above, the higher the expectations of others, the greater the disappointment.
In fact, what really hurts you is not others, but what you expect from others.
I don't know if you have ever heard of the "Stockdale Paradox".
In 1965, U.S. Admiral Stockdale was captured during the Vietnam War and held at the Hilton POW Camp in Hanoi.
Stockdale was tortured more than 20 times until he was released and returned home eight years later.
The other American prisoners of war in the same camp, mostly much younger and in much better health than Stockdale, died quickly.
The American scholar Jim went to interview Stockdale and asked: "In 8 years, you have had many companions who have unfortunately died, why can you survive?" ”
Stockdale thought about it and said:
"I survived because I didn't expect too much from the future, and the reason they died was because they expected too much from the future;
They always hoped that Christmas would be pardoned, but after Christmas they could not do so;
So I thought Easter was OK, but I still wasn't released...
This disappointment followed by disappointment, and soon after the depression ended. ”
The "Stockdale Paradox" tells us a very simple truth:
Don't expect too much from what hasn't happened yet, the greater the expectation, the greater the disappointment.
Once the expectations are disappointed, the huge sense of gap will cause you great psychological harm.
Remember, never expect too much from anyone.
If the expectations for the partner are too high, they will quarrel because of a little trivial matter, affecting the partner's feelings;
If you expect too much from your parents, you will complain that your parents are unable to create good conditions for yourself, which not only colds the hearts of your parents, but also makes yourself inferior and sensitive;
Expectations for children are too high, once they do not meet expectations, they will be disappointed and irritable, and the parent-child relationship will become bad;
If you expect too much from your friends, it will be difficult for you to have several true friends in this society.
As the writer Mader put it, "I slowly understood why I wasn't happy because I was always expecting a result." ”
Expecting too much from anyone is a disaster.
The top self-discipline of adults is to reduce expectations of others.
There is a formula in economics: happiness = utility/expectation.
That is to say, the lower a person's expectations, the easier it is to be satisfied, and the easier it is to get happiness.
Some netizens shared a story that I found very interesting.
Netizens said that when he just graduated from college, there was a period of time when he had a very poor life, and he saw that even eating had become a problem, but he could not pull down his face and open his mouth to ask his family.
So, he sent a message to a classmate in high school, hoping to borrow two thousand yuan for the emergency.
This classmate, like him, had just graduated from college and did not necessarily have spare money on hand, so he hardly held out any hope.
An hour had passed since the message was sent, and he did not see a reply from his classmates for a long time, and he was a little dead-hearted.
As a result, after another half an hour, the classmate replied to him that he was in a meeting just now, and the leader would not let him look at the mobile phone.
Immediately after that, he received a transfer of two thousand yuan from his classmates.
He said that at that moment, he was inexplicably a little moved.
As it is said in "Human Disqualification": "If there is no excessive joy, there is no extreme sadness." ”
When you don't have expectations, life is full of surprises.
When you are on your own, you can live the life you want.
I know an elderly couple and appreciate their outlook on life.
They never thought of relying on their children to support their children in the future, so when they were young, they worked very hard, bought all kinds of insurance, and saved a lot of money for the elderly.
After retirement, the old couple never opened their mouths to ask their children for money, took the money saved when they were young, and there was a pension, traveled everywhere, and lived happily in their later years.
Seeing the living state of the second old, I remembered a sentence:
The smartest way for people to live is nothing more than to reduce dependence, lower expectations, and maintain love.
When you lower your expectations and reduce your dependence, everything you see is good.
Finally, I would like to share a paragraph with you:
"Don't put all your expectations on others, because others are under no obligation to fulfill your expectations.
Expecting too much from others is essentially an escape and prevarication of one's own incompetence. ”
Instead of expecting others, rely on yourself.
When you are strong inside, you are no longer afraid of loneliness, no longer expect someone to accompany you;
When you are financially independent, you have the confidence to solve the problem and no longer expect someone to help you.
Click "Watching" and may we all live as our own ferrymen, and we can get what we want on our own.
Author | Insight muye
Typography | Zheng to the north
Music | The end of the sky