Dear Faux Pelini,
While everyone is different and deals with challenges in different ways, Cal fans are particularly vexed by the constant state of inadequacy our football program is in. What are your suggestions for how to deal with consistent mediocrity, with slight glimmers of being good, long periods lacking hope, and nearly a decade of being beaten down by a very boring rival?
With many sighs,
Matt, class of '13
Dear MCO13,
Because you seem like a nice person and used the word “vexed” in your question, I’m going to share the secret of life with you: Life is one simple math formula.
The formula is:
[PERFORMANCE] – [EXPECTATIONS] = X
If X is a positive number you get raises and praise and friends.
If X is a negative number, you get fired and people think you are dumb.
Many people focus on making sure their performance is great. They study, go to the gym, practice, read and do all kinds of other stuff to make sure they are performing as well as they can. And all of that is good and worth doing.
But it ignores half of the equation.
People don’t really care what you accomplish, MCO13. I mean, they care, but that’s not the main thing. What they really care about is whether you disappointed them or impressed them. And whether they are disappointed or impressed is tied to what they subconsciously predicted was going to happen in the first place, which was based on their expectations.
So you want expectations about you and your teams and other things you care about to be as low as possible.
For example, if a coach goes into a season where six wins are expected and he wins eight, there will be parties and nice articles and maybe a raise. If the fans and bosses expect 10 wins and he wins nine, people will be mad. (Trust me on that one.) It’s just math.
MCO13, you can use this formula to your advantage by setting your own expectations as low as you can, and making sure others have low expectations of you, too. For your Cal football team, brainwash yourself into believing that five wins is just fine and that you will never make it to a Rose Bowl. If you win seven or eight games it will be a great year! And if you one day make the Rose Bowl you will wet yourself.
If you expect great things to happen, the best you can be is satisfied. If you expect bad things, you can be pleasantly surprised and even happy, and never sigh again.
