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Thursday, January 19, 2017

About creating expectations



Not everything happens as we do. But frustration is also a feeling of one who dreams, falls and rises, collecting adventures in life
When I was a student, I once heard, "You need to learn that things are not how you want them to be. They're the way they are. "Who told me this was a college professor. And not philosophy. Of pharmacology. The rumble resounds in my memory to this day. I was a medical high school student and pretended to be a researcher. With this dream I was able to train in several university labs, especially in physiology, histology and biochemistry. And it was very good. I learned a lot. Maybe less about science and more about discipline, patience, care and above all about managing expectations. That research was on the presumed bactericidal power of alkaloids present in Ilex paraguariensis, known yerba mate, widely used in southern Brazil. The theory (that is, the idea conceived a priori) was that the microorganisms would not support the metabolic alteration promoted by the modified culture medium. In other words, when taking tea or mate, you would be killing possible bacteria. Only that was not what happened. The bacteria liked the tea. They grew and multiplied faster. I even imagined them smiling with satisfaction. That was when I expressed my disappointment to Professor Azizi. And then I had to hear from her that a scientific research exists to verify what happens in a given situation, not to prove what was already supposed to happen. The survey checks, does not certify. It allows the understanding of natural phenomena, which have their own laws, and are fondling our opinions or desires. "If you want to be a scientist one day, stop trying to prove your theories," concluded the teacher. I never forgot that experience. I learned in the lab, meaning real and the bitter taste of expectation frustration. And I remember that event every time I wait a lot for something, and what ends up happening is the opposite. Destiny sometimes takes the form of that glass plate with a reddish circle with white dots that I took under a microscope to see the bacteria waving shamelessly to my inexperienced eye. Stored in proportion, I feel that I sometimes relive that feeling. I recently went through this. I woke up early on a Monday full of appointments and, of course, expectations. At least four good things should happen that day, two connected to work , social commitment and the arrival of the last tablet purchased by the manufacturer's website (only those who love gadgets will understand me). Well, the order did not arrive, the two meetings were totally inconclusive and the party I went to at the end of the day was boring and almost unpleasant. Can you? Everything went wrong that day. Has such a catastrophe ever happened to you? You must know what I'm talking about. And again I remembered the teacher saying that, however clever, lucid and prepared we are, there will be days when things will not be as we wish. They will be as they are. And ready. Far be it from me to turn this story into a tribute to conformism. I do not do the type that conforms, or that taxes the failure to the destination. Not even. I am more of the type that draws energy from the difficulties, and who believes that failure is a great learning opportunity. Without any romanticism. And I wonder what the main source of expectation is. Is it just desire? I believe that, most of the time, it is, yes. When we strongly desire something, we create a high anxiety about its accomplishment. This is absolutely natural, but it is good to remember that the feeling of expectation only exists in the absence of reality. In other words, we create an illusion about something that does not yet exist and that we want (or expect) to come into being. And that is where the danger lives, for the desire can be greater than the viability of the fact. The educator Paulo Freire used the beautiful expression "the unpublished viable" to refer to dreams that we must have, great, but with a strong connection with reality. It is useless to dream the unfeasible, the impossible. The expectation will always be an uncertain assumption, with a high degree of frustrating possibility. So what to do? Should we, or should not, cherish expectations? The danger of having them is disappointment. The danger of not having them is conformism. Personally, I prefer to live with disappointment, for it is fleeting. It lasts until the next expectation is created. Disillusionment, frustration, sadness, hopelessness, all these are the very feelings of the existence of people who dream, try, realize or not, win and lose, fall and rise, and go through life, collecting adventures. These are feelings that we can deal with as long as we have inner structure. Learning, in relation to expectation, is that it must be generated by desire, but born of reality. "What can go wrong?" - this is a question, which we do not usually ask, when the desire is greater than the consciousness, which we leave aside, withdrawn with contempt, being considered a spoiler. But she is not that. On the contrary, consciousness is an ally of success, when it creates the ideal conditions for the realization of the desired, for the fulfillment of expectation. Evaluating what can go wrong creates a safer route, as we have the tools to correct the defects of the route. "We need to plan well so we can improvise better," said Winston Churchill. And he understood that. About that lab research, which was not how I expected it, but that was how it should be, ended up giving me inputs for another, even better. The obvious increase in the metabolism of bacteria gave rise to another protocol, verifying the effect on mammals, including humans, increasing resistance to infections. I ended up getting where I wanted, down a path I could not imagine. The result was a published, appreciated and even awarded work. That was not the expectation, but, I assure you, it was much better than the original. That's life. Only those who do not have dreams and desires do not have expectations. And only frustration does not take advantage of those who do not understand the dynamics of things.

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