The problem with rising expectations
Yes, and some baseball
Back in April, at the beginning of the baseball season, my expectations for my team, the Cincinnati Reds, were low, to say the least. In the 2022 season, we lost 100 games. If you’re not a baseball fan, this is a very bad thing. We won less than half our games. Way less than half. We sucked.
The year before our owner had a fire sale with our team, trading away most of our best (and some of my favorite) players. It was clearly going to be another dismal season. The most I had to look forward to was seeing Joey Votto on the field again, possibly for the last time in a Reds uniform. Then Votto didn’t make it back on opening day from his off-season shoulder surgery and it became clear the whole season would be a wash. Another Cincinnati sports disaster.
Except, then the Reds started winning. Then, Joey Votto did make it back from his injury and hit a home run in his first game. Then the Reds called up a crop of amazing prospects from the minors, including Elly De La Cruz, the fastest man in baseball (and maybe the world). They called up Matt McClain, 5’8” to De La Cruz’s 6’5”, so that the two of them look like a circus act when they stand next to each other in the infield. They called up pitched Andrew Abbot and Christian Encarnacion-Strand and Noelvi Marte. They went on a 12-game winning streak in June. They led the league for a time in stolen bases, De La Cruz stealing three bases in two pitches (this is a big deal in baseball). They led their division for a good chunk of the season. They were in it.
In other words, my expectations for the season went out the window. In the spring and early summer when I watched the Reds, it was pure joy. I didn’t expect this level of excitement and, you know, winning. No one did. My partner and I turned on the game every night. It wasn’t just baseball. It was an event.
But nothing lasts forever, especially not winning sports teams in Cincinnati. In July, Jonathan India, the veteran heart of our team, got hurt. Joey Votto’s shoulder got sore and he went on the injured list, along with Matt McClain. Our starting pitching could only make it through five innings (at most) and our bullpen got exhausted.
Summary for the non-baseball fans out there—we started losing. We fell out of the race for the division title. One game back, two games back. Now, six and half games out. We still have a chance of making it into the playoffs in the wild card spot, but it’s not looking good.
We’re one and a half games out of the wild card spot at the moment and this feels soul-crushing. We were going to win our division. Now there’s a chance we’ll end the season barely over .500 (meaning, once again, we will have lost more games than we won). I am so disappointed.
I’m crushed, even though I started the season expecting nothing from this team. Expecting another season with 100 losses. Expecting another six months of baseball misery. None of that matters. I can tell myself that this season exceeded my expectations even if we don’t make the playoffs, but it’s a hard sell. That’s the thing about expectations.
When I started this newsletter in September 2021, I had exactly 49 subscribers and I thought that was awesome. Forty-nine subscribers I migrated over from MailChimp. Forty-nine people who read the weird stuff I sent into their inbox once a week. In the town where I live, people would sometimes talk to me about what I’d written in the newsletter for that week which was the coolest (it still is). I started the newsletter because I was lonely during the pandemic and I wanted to reach out to people in whatever way I could. With 49 people, I was doing that and that was enough. Now I look at my 400+ subscribers and feel like a total loser.
As humans, we are infinitely adaptable creatures, a quality that serves us well in many situations. Not so much when it comes to expectations. When I was in graduate school and living on a considerably tighter budget, buying generic brand food was just fine. I was delighted by a meal of frozen French fries and vegetarian Manwich. I kid you not. This was fine dining. My one-bedroom apartment had carpet so old that when you spilled water, it kind of stank. I didn’t care. It was close to campus and across from the Chocolate Moose. It was heaven.
That graduate school version of me would not believe what we spend monthly on groceries, let alone the booze. I currently make almost ten times what I made as a graduate student (which is about how little I made as a grad student and not how very much I make now). And yet, I still worry about money. I still wish I had more. At every step, my expectations kept pace with my income.
It is, of course, a good thing to expect more from life. I wouldn’t have accomplished many of the things I have without those raising expectations. If the Reds were expecting to lose 100 games, they probably would not have had the amazing season they did.
High expectations can be good. They’re also exhausting. I don’t know exactly what to do about that. I suspect it involves savoring the moment. I imagine there’s some gratitude practice involved. I guess it’s good to remember the joy of having 49 subscribers.
Truthfully, I wish I could go back to that moment when 49 subscribers made me happy. I wish I could tell that version of myself to bathe in the satisfaction. I think the best I can do is to whisper to the current version of myself, “Enjoy it now.” Why is that so hard?
Madison area folks, I’ll be at Village Lights Bookstore this Saturday, September 16, from 1-3, talking and signing books. I’ll be upstairs, so come find me and stop by.
Also coming up, pre-orders for the anthology, Playing Authors, from Old Iron Press, will be available Oct. 1. More details to come, but there’s a big launch event in Indianapolis on November 11, at Tomorrow Bookstore, so mark your calendar now. I have a piece in the anthology, along with
whose newsletter is awesome. I can’t wait for everyone to check it out.
Great things I read this week:
this conversation between and about what magic is, which is ongoing, so subscribe to them and stay tuned for more goodness
Always, ’s gorgeous writing and making me miss Paris so much
I have learned it isn't just the expectations, it is the narratives we construct about our lives. For good or ill, I am a story teller, and I hate to admit it but my favorite character is myself, if only in my head, and what age has taught me is that I can use my narrative to make my story a happy one or not. I just have to be careful to keep in mind...it is a story. As a reader and a writer I like a story to be generally light-hearted, but with serious themes. So, I have spent a good amount of time turning things like our initial poverty (sitting on the floor because we had no furniture, not having a car in So Cal because we were too poor for the first 5 years of our marriage, etc.) into a story about how carefree we were, how we spent our money on lots of vinyl records, were content with the small black and white TV and card table we got from my parents, how excited we were about the couch we rescued from a dumpster that had been spray painted orange! But while this positive narrative did have some long term negative effects (like making me think that I needed to make everyone else in my life be as "happy" as I was) it also had a positive effect on my life. For example, it meant that we did a good job of expanding our spending slowly, never getting into debt, and really enjoying the slow but small increases in our standard of living. But then, the disasters in our lives were never really financial, nor were unrealistic expectations a problem in financial areas...since we knew a life in academia wasn't going to make us rich. No the disasters came from completely unanticipated new plot twists with all the emotional pain, worry and fear, when the people you love aren't just unhappy, but in real danger. But again, with age I have watched how I have spun those new plots into - not happy ever after- but good enough. And just as that dumpster was good enough and actually brought me joy, I now understand that no matter what happens, my expectation is that I will both survive, but eventually thrive. Everything else is just a injury away from jettison a winning season, so I might as well enjoy todays game.
Thank you so much for the mention, Robyn.