How your expectations colour your experiences

I was thinking primarily of entertainment (movies, games, books, music), but I suppose it could apply to a lot of things... But do you generally find that you:

1. Have high expectations for things and are often disappointed, and also have low expectations for other things and come away delightfully surprised.

~or~

2. Expect to like things, and find reasons to back up your expectations, and therefore have made up your mind before receiving all of the facts, and in the reverse, expect not to like other things and come up with reasons to dislike something, having essentially made up your mind ahead of time to dislike it.

I can go both ways. ;)

"If you lower the bar, its easier to jump over."

I'd like to think I came up with that, but its my opinion on a lot of things. For anything to excel, including yourself, you've got to be realistic about what to expect, maybe even less so.

TV's Frink said:

xhonzi said:

How your expectations colour your experiences

What, you're from England now?

 Um.... I dont get this - care to explain???

Comments like that will force me to put a pro-Britannia comment on my sig!

:p

hehe I spell it color too, its one less letter to write

TV's Frink said:

xhonzi said:

How your expectations colour your experiences

What, you're from England now?

What what, are you from the colonies now, gov'nor?

Pip pip.

TheBoost said:

Honestly, how many times do you actually go to something and expect NOT to like it? If you do, why do you go?

Excepting certain cases of being dragged in a group to see a movie  or the rare case of a film so inept it's enjoyable for it's overwhelming flaws I usually don't see any entertainment that I don't expect to at least get a kick out of.

I often find myself in this situation: Expect to be disappointed, hope to be thrilled. 

Avatar
Star Wars Episodes 1-3
Indy IV
Lost Season 6
etc... 

I went to see a movie once and my wife and I had had a fight.  I hated the movie.  Still do.  Is that the fault of the movie, or did I take too much baggage into the theatre with me?

I think comedies can be especially effected by this.  Depending on your mood when you see the movie, the same movie can either be really funny or fall really flat.

I wish the OT Star Wars movies never existed, cos then i might be able to watch the prequel movies and give them a fair go.

xhonzi said:

TV's Frink said:

xhonzi said:

How your expectations colour your experiences

What, you're from England now?

What what, are you from the colonies now, gov'nor?

Pip pip.

 what's pip pip all about? are you from the clankers now?

cutnshut said:

I wish the OT Star Wars movies never existed, cos then i might be able to watch the prequel movies and give them a fair go.

 

What?!  That's like saying, "I wish they'd never made the vaccine because then I might be able to give Polio a fair go"!

--------See Below ^ (sorry cant do a down arrow) --------

Warbler said:

cutnshut said:

I wish the OT Star Wars movies never existed, cos then i might be able to watch the prequel movies and give them a fair go.

 

without the OT, there'd be no pt.   

 Haha! you fell into my trap!

Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of "You've been Cutnshut !"

:)

xhonzi said:

I went to see a movie once and my wife and I had had a fight.  I hated the movie.  Still do.  Is that the fault of the movie, or did I take too much baggage into the theatre with me?

IT'S A TRAP!!!

Too late.  :( 

Depends on what movie it was. Is the general consensus that it is bad?

I honestly don't remember which movie it was.  I DO, however, remember discussing it with a bud and he really liked it... so I thought maybe it had to do with my frame of mind going in moreso than the actual quality of the movie.

xhonzi said:

I went to see a movie once with my wife.  I hated the movie.  Still do.  Is that the fault of the movie, or did I take too much baggage into the theatre with me?

 I Hope your wife doesnt see that comment!

If you don't remember what movie it was, I guess you can give it a fair shake next time.

I don't remember what movie it was, but I bet if you asked me about it (because you just saw it, or something) I would give you the opinion I formed that night.  Even if it's not fair.

And my point is this: we're not objective observers.  EVERY movie we see, we see subjectively.  And the origin of our subjection is all over the map, day to day, so the movies/songs/whathaveyou that we think we like are more of a reflection of what we were feeling at the time than any objective thoughts we had about it.