What happens when your expectations don't match reality?

I don't know where I got this from, so it could be something that I stole from a book. This idea that frustration is expectation misaligned with reality. And so I was meditating on that idea quite a bit. And, like, what that actually means, like, your frustration comes from a misalignment with what's real and what you should expect. So I came up with this framework of, like, how happiness can be attained, which I think is also a way of saying, how do you reduce stress in your life? And I think that it can be attained in one of three ways if you believe that frustration is expectation misaligned with reality. And I believe that the three ways are, one, accepting that misalignment and just understanding that that's a thing, that there is this misalignment between what your expectation is and what the reality is. The second is changing your expectation. So saying, hey, maybe I am thinking things and imagining something as it can't really be or shouldn't really be or isn't. And then the third is actually changing reality, which I think is potentially challenging, but I think it's also possible.

Hi, my name is Stuart Alsop, and this is my podcast, Crazy Wisdom, where I interview creative people about how they work with and manage the stress that is inherent in creative work. What I've realized over the past 10 years of my research is that anybody who is creating something of value that is significantly different from what has come before is considered crazy. Most of us have a fear, an ingrained fear of going crazy. So what I'm saying is grab onto that fear, realize that it's there, and just go with it.