Happiness Expectations

The link in the title takes you to an article where a French Buddhist is the happiest man in the world. Ahem: French-Buddhist, nuff said?

Permit me to help you be more happy. I'll illustrate my point:

You are at Outback Steakhouse and the hostess says your wait will be 25 minutes. You glance at your watch and take the buzzer. How happy would you be if:

If you are seated in 5 minutes.
If you are seated in 25 minutes.
If you are seated in 45 minutes.

File those responses for me and read on.

Either way you have waited and are inconvenienced for time that you can never recover. However you choose to spend this time for the steak or fried onion or whatever floats your epicurial boat. No matter how long it takes you ultimately get what you were looking for assuming the servers skills and food prep was par.

The only difference is your perceived inconvenience or surprise bonus. If you are seated in 5 minutes you are thrilled with the luck and have a good feeling. If you wait an extra 20 minutes you might feel slighted or angry.

The life lesson is to have a reasonable expectation of everything. Expect the server to not really know how long it will take to seat you. Expect others to not be perfect all the time. I do not advocate being a slug and never pushing yourself or those around you. However if you set the expectation of perfection you will rarely find it here in this world.

Of course ignorance is also bliss as that is a form of lower expectations.