(Article) The Secret to Happiness and Compassion: Low Expectations

[The Devil's Advocate]

I learned this reading Calvin and Hobbes.

Calvin brings home a C and his parents are ecstatic. Hobbes asks him why they so happy about a C. He says the secret is to lower expectations. Cause he’d always come home with F’s, it was such an improvement. Where if he got C’s the whole time, they’d be expecting A’s

And that’s why I tell every woman my dikk is small

 

[Scustin Bieburr]

Real spit the two things that will give you peace are low expectations and gratitude.







Most people don't realize just how many people would literally kill to have 24/7 electricity and clean drinkable water, let alone having that water in a hot or cold shower. Right now there are people fighting wars for the right to just go about their business without being killed.

 

[BaggerofTea]

Should be stickied

 

[BaggerofTea]

Real spit the two things that will give you peace are low expectations and gratitude.







Most people don't realize just how many people would literally kill to have 24/7 electricity and clean drinkable water, let alone having that water in a hot or cold shower. Right now there are people fighting wars for the right to just go about their business without being killed.

Say it again brother

 

[Satsui no Hadou]

Two major influences on my thinking as a young man - indeed, even to this day - were the great stoics Seneca and Marcus Aurelius. I still have a copy of the meditations and every once in a while I open it up to a random passage to get me through the day.

The stoics, contrary to popular conception, were not emotionless creatures, but rather believed in living accordance to the universal nature. A man who denies this is denying life itself. Stoics were not averse to feeling, but rather sought to master one’s destructive emotions such as hate, greed, lust, et Al that invariably lead to vice and ruin.

By tempering our expectations, by living according to this universal order, would man find solace. This means carrying compassion in our hearts, working for the greater good, mastering our emotions for the things we can change - ourselves - and sincerely accepting the things we can not. It’s not unlike siddhartha Gautama’s teachings, which also reflect the practical nature of ancient philosophy.

What I found especially amazing was that Aurelius wrote the meditations during military campaigns. Some speculate these writings were not intended for dissemination, but rather were the private reflections of one of the greatest Roman emperors, and the last of the five good emperors once commodus assumed the purple.