3.13.2010

welcome to the church of comparisons and expectations*

*you may already be a practicing member.


it was my friend’s intention to calm me down. i was comparing one significant life event and choices to another. my anxiety flared and he kept trying to tell me that the two are completely different and that the outcomes can’t be compared. therefore comparing the two is only an exercise in frustration blah blah blah. . .

i calmed down and our conversation moved onto other topics . . . but my brain went to work . . .

comparisons.

i feel that we are often told to avoid them.

we have a lot of sayings for comparisons. . .
the grass is always greener. . . . keeping up with the jones’s. . . .apples and oranges. . . . mind your p’s and q’s. . . whip them out and measure. . .

it would seem that we’ve created a language of idioms to talk about comparisons. a way of dancing around comparisons without actually touching them. comparison is considered playing dirty.

we are taught that it is impolite to ask about a person’s wages.
we might compare their paycheck to our own. we might start to compare their skills to our own.
how many hours do they work? how difficult are their tasks? are they deserving of their pay? are we deserving of ours? do we deserve more? is their car a better make? is their husband or wife hotter than mine? are her shoes more fashionable? did she get fatter? has he lost more hair? are their kids smarter? what side of town do they live on? oh, she went to THAT university? you mean you don’t buy organic? mac or pc? what do you mean you’ve NEVER watched princess bride?

it can get messy. if you use these means to measure self worth it can get quick sand messy. people like to avoid messes. . . so they throw in a ‘grass is always greener’ to persuade you away from the topic and to reassure you that you aren’t seeing the full picture. and possibly somehow, there’s an unseen balance.

(schadenfreude; possibly the only time when this game is a little fun.)



my question is. . . my argument is: there is nothing but comparison.

well, that. . . and possibly. . . expectation.

-expectation also has a lot of sayings. . .

don’t count your eggs before they’ve hatched, assuming makes an ‘ass’ out of ‘u’ and ‘me,’ don’t count your irons before they’re hot, (the SAT favorite) hope for the best and prepare for the worst.

sidenote insight:
i tend to be argumentative. i might have spiraled out on this limb just to argue against my friend’s point. it’s a possibility. . . but i’ve created an argument that i’m having trouble breaking.

now, all i see is comparison and expectation. comparison and expectation. they both give birth to choice.

from start to end of day. . . think about it.

i compare my likes and dislikes constantly. i draw on past experience to piece together possible contentment and disappointment ratios when dealing with expectations.

for example- booths tend to feel slightly more removed from other patrons at a restaurant, so i prefer them. comparison made- i like booths more than tables and chairs. new restaurant?- choose a booth- keeping with the rule set by past comparisons. new discovery- there is an awkward distance between this particular bench and table. balance of expectations tips away from contentment and toward disappointment. next time at that restaurant, i choose table and chairs.

seems weighty for a simple night of pizza. . . but the equation applies to nearly everything.

why i choose one pair of socks over another/ one day’s activities over another/ one brand of toilet paper over another/ one person’s company over another/ one place to live in over another/ one movie over another/ one ice cream over another.

the equation doesn’t function properly yet.

say, i want to see a tim burton movie because i know from past experiences that movies he touches rate high on my enjoyable scale. add to that, the movie has ewan mcgregor (another person that tends to make movies more enjoyable.) so, my expectations are high. i see the movie, and it falls short. it rates on the ‘meh’ level. merely neutral. am i dissuaded from tim burton movies or ewan mcgregor movies? no, but i am slightly more hesitant.

another side note:
sometimes even a bad movie is made more enjoyable with the right company. conversely a good movie experience can be ruined by obnoxious audience members or movie theatres with poor audio equipment. (just to show that there are so many factors in each equation.)

there are also different sets of scales to weigh the comparisons and expectations. i.e. the set of scales used to measure movie experiences aren’t big enough to weigh the comparison between leaving one job for another.

nearly everything becomes data entry for an equation hopefully leading to the summation of a decent day.

each new byte is met with. . .
compared to what i know, or what i understand. . . what are the expectations?
then. . . what’s the scale of the expectation? large or small.
then. . . can i handle the fallout? can i perceive how good it might be?

will it matter now? or later?. . . how much later?


guess my point is. . .if you try to make the argument to me that ‘it’s like comparing apples and oranges’. . . this above tirade is what runs through my head. which will make it very likely that i will spend a decent part of my day fantasizing about punching you in the neck.


**i feel that this should’ve been more monumental considering how long i thought about it. . . . but, if you can make a good argument against it. . . i’d love to hear it.

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