Managing Expectations: Do You Have An Unrealistic Dream? Are You Like The Monkey Unwilling to Let Go of The Peanuts?
Well, our cultural has imprinted in our genetic the word "expectations". We go through life expecting love, achievements, wealth, health, etc. Having expectations and dreams drive us to achieve excellence in life. However, do you know if you have a realistic or achievable goals or unrealistic expectations? Are you managing your expectations well? 
There is a tale about how certain hunter catches monkeys in Africa. It can be very difficult to corral these intelligent creatures, so hunters have used a more inventive method…trapping a monkey by enticing him. A small jar is placed at the base of a tree with nuts or other items which may attract the monkey’s curiosity. The opening of the jar allows the monkey to place his hand in, but when he tries to withdraw it, he is unable to do so without letting go of the contents of the jar. Believe it or not, some monkeys will stay there with their hand in the jar until the hunter comes back to trap them! They are trapped because they are unwilling to let go of something they are doing which is working against them… More often that not, we are like the monkeys, because of our unrealistic expectations, we getting trapped by what we are unwilling to release. We fail in managing expectations and our wants. We have so many wants in our life, we want THE house that we couldn’t afford the payments, but MUST have. We want the DIOR clothes; it’s so tempting we just can’t NOT having it although we couldn’t afford it. There are never ending to our wants and desires! There may be variations on these themes, but in the end they’re still peanuts…unrealistic expectations held on to at the expense of moving forward and achieving our goals & desires. Are you one of those people trapped under this phenomenon? There is of course, different various to the monkeys’ need but doesn’t all of us sometimes bound by the unrealistic expectation and we just can’t let go? Those expectations hinder us from moving forward from achieving our goals and desires. But the question is why can’t the monkeys let go? Why can’t we let go and managing our expectations well? Is it pride – good to have those that others can’t have? Or is it cultural or is it our background? Or is it our youthful fantasies? We incorporate fame and fortune into our fantasies because it's glamorous, fun and shows a life full of possibilities. However, a recent trend has developed where fame and fortune are not mere distracting fantasies, but are seen by many as their natural rights. A culture of expectation has taken a firm grip on us and we can't seem to shake it. The hunters, who represent the opportunist in the markets, take advantage of our weakness by offering its attractive offerings that we couldn’t simply resist. They knew our weakness and use it to trap us. The market doesn’t really care which monkey is snared by the contents of the jar. They know some monkeys will pass on the peanuts and think it’s not attractive enough, but some taken the bite. But, it gambles that enough monkeys will not figure out a very simply solution to the dilemma.
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