Expectations

Guest blog from Ray Sperber:

Recently I had some personal setbacks.  Throughout the distraught pondering of the events involved, several thoughts recurred.  One of them is:  What was I expecting?  

Superficially, this is easy to answer: Just play memories back to before the events.  Granted, this is sometimes painful.  And maybe hard to do accurately.

Then the issues start...  Why was it expected?  Was there any right to expect it?  

Obviously, since the outcome was not desired, the expectations should have been different...  How? Why? and what should have been done differently as a consequence?  And now, that the undesired has happened, how have expectations changed? (*)  Are the expectations now appropriate?

To all readers who may also experience, or have experienced, setbacks:  We wish you appropriate expectations.

(*) Mathematically minded readers may consider Bayesian statistics 

Ray