It is when I don't care one way or another what people do that I avoid disappointment. When let down as I often am, when promises aren't kept, commitments not fulfilled, when people simply don't do what they say or what I would like them to, then all that is fine as long as I don't care about the situation at hand. As long as I have kept expectation somewhere between low and zero, as long as I haven't made any kind of formal agreement, then I can get along with others just fine.

However, when I am more invested, when deeper aspects are engaged in something whether a project initiative or a personal connection, that's when there is always trouble. Always! Disappointment becomes so acute that confrontation is inevitable. Seldom if ever are the confrontations resolved in a satisfactory way. The fall-out I then have to live with to be confronted in perpetuity if the relationships maintain. Alternatively I cut off completely and revert to the not caring. Normality can then be resumed.

It is a curious phenomenon. Without some kind of raised expectation few things that really matter in life can be achieved. In such a context progress is compromised. Low expectation becomes the ordinary way of things. At first it might just be tactical as a way of getting through. But then it becomes more ingrained until it is instinctive and total. Expectation in any elevated way is eroded entirely A low grade ethos prevails, one that is unfailingly predictable.

Maslow talks of low and high synergy societies. In the high synergy groups there is greater understanding and sensitivity to the aspirations of others. Individuals can see their own success as consistent with the success of others. It benefits them to make constructive agreements, to honour them willingly and go on to make new ones, agreements that allow them to live at a higher level of existence.

No society of course is ever perfect in this regard but some are better than others depending on historic, cultural, political and economic factors. I come from a low synergy community where nearly all expectation is reduced to that provided by the safety of convention.

To what degree this factors in my failures is hard to assess. I suspect quite a lot.