MALIK: Unrealistic expectations toward college, other life stages will spoil experience
Column: On the Good Life
If you have just started college and find yourself looking back at high school, you may find yourself in an odd predicament, one that I have recently observed. We see one of our experiences as the original, while the rest become the less exciting sequel.
When we enter new phases of our lives, the old phases can seem sweeter. It seems that nostalgia always makes things seem better than they actually were at the time. Oftentimes, getting lost in a nostalgic feeling makes our present seem less meaningful.
In "Why The Trip Home Seems To Go By Faster" by Joe Palca, the author describes the phenomenon of a trip feeling shorter on the way home. Originally, Palca said it was thought that "the trip back seems shorter because it is more familiar, so people recognize landmarks."
But, in the article, Niels van de Ven, a psychologist at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, proposes a different reason why trips seem to take less time on the return journey. He said, "Often we see that people are too optimistic when they start to travel." This means that when people actually finish the trip, they feel negatively because it took longer than they initially expected.
That feeling of pessimism carries over to when people are ready to return home. Ven explains, "So you start the return journey, and you think, 'Wow, this is going to take a long time.'" The pessimism on the way back allows for that trip to seem shorter because you already expected it to be worse. Ven ultimately argues that it is not landmarks that cause this phenomenon, but one's own expectations.
What ends up taking precedence over the journey is our focus on expectations. As life progresses, there are many novel experiences to be excited about and a general belief in new freedoms. It is fair to have some optimism, but that optimism is met with challenges that make it difficult to see only the bright side.
The journey to a new place can end up being met with negativity. But as you discuss it and understand it, or even continue to live it, it becomes clear that things were not as bad as they first seemed. So the trip seems shorter and the optimism returns. What Ven highlights is that the optimism we have prior to the experience creates an unrealistic standard of what we expect it to be.
Ultimately, new experiences are never going to meet these expectations, especially not in the beginning. But when we remind ourselves to remove expectations, we can learn to enjoy things as they are. This is what happens on the trip back home because there are no optimistic expectations to compare the journey to. Instead, there is a negative expectation of work and long amounts of time.
This applies again to our journeys into college. When we settle in and let things happen as they are, we find it easier to enjoy different occurrences and situations without expectations.
What this phenomenon illustrates is that in our journeys through life, media and trips, the only thing standing in the way of our enjoyment is expectation. Whether it be expectations that the trip will be short, the next season will be great or that college will be the best years of your life, expectations create our view of the world.
When a journey has challenges or is not what we expect at first, we react negatively. But as life has shown us, in the end, we decide things were better as they happened. I would refer to this as the cycle of expectation. The best way to combat the pessimism is to not have comparisons, but enjoy your life as it is and stay open to new possibilities. After all, the journey is what is important.
Sehar Malik is a first-year in the School of Arts and Sciences where she is majoring in Molecular Biology and Biochemistry and minoring in French. Her column, "On the Good Life," runs alternate Thursdays.
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