Imagine a cylinder. This cylinder measures your standards, which are your expectations and goals for yourself in life. As satisfaction is contingent on meeting and exceeding ever-growing standards for oneself, filling this cylinder with standards and achievements is required for happiness. Any amount of this cylinder that is not filled with achievements is void, and we love to fill the void. The higher the standard, the less likely the void filler will be destructive. When our cylinder is full of self-completeness, we can overflow into the cylinders of others with positivity.
Imagine a space outside this cylinder. We will describe this space as an infinitely wide cylinder, which encompasses everyone and everything other than ourselves. We interpret the content of this cylinder, based on our perceptions, as either completeness or void. If our expectations are higher, the more void we perceive. If our expectations are lower, the more complete the content we perceive.
- Perception of completeness is paired with gratitude. For example, if we expect nothing at all from others, everything that is done is perceived with surprise and, if it is not explicitly destructive, we will be filled with gratitude. We will perceive opportunities at all angles.
- Perception of incompleteness raises expectations: If our expectations are 100%, we have no room for surprise, gratitude nor opportunity. Everything will fall below this standard, and we will be frustrated, disappointed, and will be led to self-alienation.
When we lower our expectations of others, we become capable of gratitude for them and all they do. If they are not mentally unwell, they will usually respond to this with improvement: When we see the best in others, and explicitly commend them for it, they tend to become better at those things and draw closer to us. When we condemn activities in others, they will usually become galvanized in their behaviors, work in darkness, and become alienated from us; we create enemies.
How peculiar it is that we tend to try and fill the void in our own selves with the contents of others? This is most evident when our expectations of others are high, and our standards are low. We try to take all that falls below our external expectations and use it to fill our own voids, but it never works. It evaporates quickly, and we are left with even less than we had before. Moreover, when others fall below our standards (think of that cylinder as a visual measure) we have the absurd tendency to tear them down further, as if this would raise them to our expectations!
It seems that happiness comes from within us like a wellspring, and never from external expectations. Happiness is a decision. Never forget that.
It seems that by lowering our expectations of others, we are liberated from the illusion that we can change the volition of others. It's nonsense to say that you can't change other people. You can hack their limbs off with a machete! You can deliver a warm drink to one on a cold night. You can impregnate or castrate or decimate another person. The mad circus of abuse, stupidity, blind tradition and myopia that is human history proves this without question: We can change the behavior of others. We have tools and weapons for that. We can change their desires, but not without stronger wills than their own, and take careful note that this will not make us happy. It will not fill our own reservoirs. It merely spills their potential onto the ground to waste, metaphorically speaking.
We can invite others to be filled, and may have some success, only after we are filled ourselves; filled with the joy of making decisions: Joy comes from power to act on understanding.
When we are filled with joy, we can share it with others, lifting them to our own completeness.
We expect so much of others, but incompetence is almost always a result of failure to comprehend requirements. We become angry because others are not fulfilling our expectations. We must communicate our expectations clearly if our short-term goals are to be met. We must be grateful for the positive in life, or we will miss out on most opportunities.
Semi-related side notes:
The ultimate feminine desire is to exist in a state without threat.
The ultimate masculine desire is to exist in a state without want.
