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# The tyranny of expectation
- URL: https://www.gilespcroft.com/the-tyranny-of-expectation/
- Published: 2025-03-24T07:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2026-02-04T18:09:45.000Z
- Description: Examining the source of my malcontent, during a period of illness 🤧
- Author: Giles P Croft
- Tags: Expectations, Illness, Acceptance, Creativity, Goals, MECHANICS, Productivity, Psychology, Real stories, Writing

If we’re being real here (which is kind of the whole point of the Daily Reminders), then I’d like to say I have something inspiring to share with you today, here at the beginning of the week… but I don’t.

In the top right corner of my screen it says it’s 06:36, and this will be with you in a matter of minutes.

I'm low-level ill, so I got an early night last night, wiped out, imagining I might wake up having a bit more juice in me, for writing… but I don’t. I spent a good deal of it tossing and turning, coughing and sneezing.

Drugs have been taken. Strong coffee is being drunk.

💊☕️

You know how it is with bad colds: first thing and last thing are the worst, and there’s usually a small window of a few hours, late morning, where you feel almost normal.

That window grows steadily as the days go by, but not in a predictable fashion – it’s two steps forward, one and a half steps back.

Anyway, in yesterday’s golden few hours (during which I should have been penning this Daily Reminder), I parcelled out my scant energy on making eggs, mending a puncture (since one day I assume I’ll ride my bike again 🤷🏻‍♂️), and learning how use GarageBand on the iPad… ostensibly to help the child express her creativity without technical hurdle, but mostly just revisiting my youth, by reconstructing a Depeche Mode song, layer by layer.

(*Behind the Wheel*, since you ask – no verse, chorus or bridge structure to fumble, no key changes, four-to-the-floor and a relentless bass line, see? I’m 2/3 of the way through and it took ages.)

We live and learn – I’ll get a few emails scheduled in my window, today.

---

Before I go, let’s have a quick check of what I’ve written and be clear about the source of any suffering I might be experiencing.

Because if I remember correctly, life itself doesn’t come pre-packaged with meaning, and then of course there's this:

🔑

****Key Message**: ALL problems are created by the mind.

So let’s see:

- *“…I’d like to say”* (expectation; not met)
- *“…imagining I might”* (expectation; not met)
- *“…predictable fashion”* (desire for; not being met)
- *“…assuming I’ll ride again”* (expectation; currently no evidence supporting)
- *“…it took ages”* (expectation; not met)

Being real, see?

Look out for these in your own day, today – these expectations are the source of any misery you might feel, not life; not your circumstances.

Anyway, it’s 06:59 and I need to hit send (expectation; *determined* to meet).

The coffee and the decongestants are beginning to kick in, and I wonder what the day ahead holds?

💟

Giles

### Related

[Being realGetting schooled by life. Again. To see why ‘feeling bad’ is such a gift. 💝![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/icon/DR_Lockup-Black-3-368.png)The Daily RemindersGiles P Croft![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/thumbnail/photo-1762146828422-50a8bd416d3c-2.jpeg)](https://www.gilespcroft.com/being-real/)

That other time I had one plan and life had another 🤷🏻‍♂️