What do you expect?

Part One: 2 Sides of the Expectation Coin:

‘Expect the unexpected’ is a common, common sense, phrase. Yet, from my perspective, it’s only one side of the expectations coin. The other side should read, ‘Imagine the expected’. 

Simply put, we can’t expect something to take place if we can’t imagine it occurring in the first place. Only then, can you expect the unexpected.

Now you know why you end up saying, “I never would have imagined that to happen.” You never imagined the unexpected because you never imagined the expected.

But, if what we imagine results in repeated expectations, this can lead to a behavior pattern or loop, i.e., of being stuck. It then takes our imagination, to imagine something else occurring, to move us out of that stuck place.

Repeated behaviors, developmentally speaking, are part of learning and mastery. But if later, once something is mastered, we don’t move on, then the potential of repeated expectations leads to that place of being stuck.

Reinforcement

In construction, reinforcement is discussed in the context of support; “reinforced concrete or reinforcement concrete is defined as the combination of steel and concrete which can take both tension and compression arises in a member as one.” 

Q: Can an engineer expect that a certain combination of materials will reinforce and support at all times? 

A: No, the engineer needs to imagine circumstances when that particular combination will not provide adequate support.

In psychology if you want a behavior repeated, you reinforce that behavior with a “reward” and so the individual is expected to be engaged in that behavior as long as s/he expects to receive the reward. 

Q: Can we expect this to always occur? 

A: No, because human nature is variable, and those variables lead to the unexpected.

Q: Are the behaviors of construction materials more predictable than human behavior? 

A: No, because the expectations are human. 

Engineers can predict what can occur when you use a particular material but even in this prediction, human error needs to be factored into the possible outcome. By imagining what may occur, you are actually supporting the successful outcome of the primary expectation to occur.

The process through which all of the above discussion takes place is within a relationship; person to person, person to object, object to person, object to object, and/or any combination such as object to object to person.

A child learning to ride a bicycle expects that he can't do it without the adult holding on to the bicycle only to see that he is riding on his own once he looks up and sees the adult is no longer at his side. In this case, it was the adult’s expectations that led to the child actually riding the bicycle on his own. 

Expectation plays a key role when it comes to health treatment. Individuals expecting to be helped or treated will experience a positive outcome even when they are given a placebo. Individuals who are not expecting to be helped by the medication, even when it was proven to treat their problem, may not experience a positive outcome to the treatment.

Part Two: 3 Sides of the Expectation Pyramid:

1. ‘Imagine the expected’.

2. ‘Expect the unexpected’.

3. ‘Expect the imagined.’

Einstein says:
“The most important question you can ever ask is if the world is a friendly place.”
Einstein explains:
“For if we decide that the universe is an unfriendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to achieve safety and power by creating bigger walls to keep out the unfriendliness and bigger weapons to destroy all that which is unfriendly and I believe that we are getting to a place where technology is powerful enough that we may either completely isolate or destroy ourselves as well in this process.
If we decide that the universe is neither friendly nor unfriendly and that God is essentially ‘playing dice with the universe’, then we are simply victims to the random toss of the dice and our lives have no real purpose or meaning.
But if we decide that the universe is a friendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to create tools and models for understanding that universe. Because power and safety will come through understanding its workings and its motives.

Einstein uses the word decide in his if…then structure; if we decide that the universe is…then we…

I suggest that we substitute the word decide with the word imagine for the if part and attach the word expect for the then part. 

For example:

…if we imagine that the universe is an unfriendly place, then we will expect to use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to achieve…

Business example:

If I imagine the philosophy of my company to be a process oriented one, then I can expect that the product will reflect the quality of that process.

Epilogue

When I graduated from my bicycle to a car, my father sat me down at our kitchen table with a blank paper and pen in his hand before I went off to my first driver’s education lesson and said to me: “They will teach you how to drive, I will teach you what you’re driving.” And then he (a plastics engineer who designed machinery) began to draw the inside of the car, it’s engine and parts, and began to explain. He realized that I couldn’t expect to drive unless I was able to imagine what it was I was driving. My father was holding on until I found my balance. He expected that I would learn how.

*Although this post turned out different than I originally imagined, I want to thank Ali Anani and Lada 🏡 Prkic for inspiring the writing of this piece and for the dynamic exchange of ideas.