One of my favorite quotes from the quotes file is one which I wrote in November of 1995 – Expectation is the mother of disappointment. Easier said than done though. Because every so often we (myself included) want something so eagerly that there are only two possible outcomes, zenith of elation or the nadir of disappoinment. There is no in between.
But is it possible to want something so much that you just screw it up for yourself? I think it is, primarily because I feel I’ve done it often enough. In fact I used to do it a lot more often than I do it now since I now try to hedge my bets if I can. And I guess the reason I’m thinking about this again and writing about it is because I’m made an uncovered bet. I want something and I don’t have a plan for what happens if I don’t get it (well, I do, but I don’t like any of the outcomes there yet). When I was in school I always wanted to do well. And sometimes I wanted it *so* bad, that I would go overboard with it. I would actually know not only the question/problem by heart, but I’d know what page of the text book it’s on and what the solution is. Okay and how is that bad? Well, then in my eagerness to do well, I wouldn’t read the damn question in the test — I’d read half of it and say, “ah! I know this one!” and I’d proceed with the solution which I knew by heart. Of course, I’d miss out the part where the examiner had changed the numbers or put in a subtle twist in the problem (one which generally made is simpler rather than harder) and land up screwing myself in the process. Because I knew the subject, it’s just that I wanted it so bad, that I’d mess it up.
I think the same thing happened with my interview for MIT when I applied there as an undergrad. It was my first interview *ever*. I wanted it really bad. And when I walked out of there, I knew I’d just screwed it up royally. Of course these are probably the more memorable screwups courtesy of just wanting something too much.
But it isn’t that I’m recognizing this problem just now. I did notice it earlier too. And my attempt at alleviating it was two-fold, a) rationalize it away by hedging, b) teach myself to just “wing-it.” So far both have worked great, but every once in a while comes something where you want it so much that you can’t hedge it with something you want equally as much and therefore you don’t feel comfortable winging it either. I guess I’m just in that type of a predicament at the moment and irrational as it may be, it seems that even thinking about it will just screw it all up. Because you can want something *too* much…
