Great Expectations

Today was an interesting day because it got me thinking about expectations. I imagine that nearly everyone who reads this will have watched at least one Disney movie. Maybe you watched Disney films as a child, or maybe you still watch them as an adult. Personally, I'm a big fan of Aladdin. In fact, it's pretty much the only Disney film I like. There are a number of reasons why I like Aladdin - as a child, it was because of the comedy, the songs, and the knowledge that one day I would grow up to look just like Princess Jasmine. I also liked the idea of meeting a Prince with a flying carpet - because all great romances start on a flying Axminster. Now, as an adult, when I look back at those films I'm reminded of my GCSE science classes. In secondary school, science experiments are generally fairly easy. There are two reasons for this (1) you're given the methodology, and (2) you're deliberately given an experiment that has a high chance of success. Whether this is to teach you that science is a fruitful and satisfying career is still unknown, but it definitely teaches you that if you approach a problem in a logical manner, more often than not you will get the results you seek.

Of course, when you get to university and start conducting your own in-depth research into questions that genuinely have no answer, you realise that science is not that predictable and rewarding. On the contrary, you learn that science experiments are repetitive, time consuming, labour intensive and rarely produce the expected outcome. My point is this - as children we are fed so many idealistic notions that by the time we become adults we are shocked and disappointed by so many things. For example, love is rarely forged between princesses and vagrants, a methodical approach to problem-solving does not guarantee positive results, and I'm sure Bernouilli would argue that carpets don't fly. The reason these idealistic notions of ground-breaking love and science never come to pass is because an adult's reality involves considerably more practical issues than a child's. There are more obstacles, more pressures, and experience has usually taken the shine out of even the most resilient of dreams. In short, life is full of complications that Disney movies don't cover and science is littered with variables that early education often overlooks. However, what we're left with can still be rewarding - moreso, actually, because we've usually had to work through a series of obstacles to get it.

Continuing the theme of 'expectations', this weekend I decided to treat myself to a Playstation 3. Knowing that I can't really afford it, I went over to GAME with my old PS2 in the vague hope of trading it in for a discount on the new console. I walked into the shop and immediately tried to offload my PS2 onto the nearest sales assistant. He was having none of it. I'll skip straight to the point - he took it to the till and valued it at £2.50. Are you kidding me? It's worth more than that! I tried everything, including flirting, but nothing worked. After 20 minutes of haggling for a better price, a small queue had formed behind me. I decided it might help to get them involved, hence why I stopped a passing woman and asked if she had any sons who might cherish a PS2 for more than £2.50 - she said she had sons but she didn't know anything about consoles or games. I'm sorry - then why are you in GAME? I concluded that she had misinterpreted the name of the shop and spent the last half hour trying to come up with a 'Plan B' now that venison was clearly out of stock.


To cut a long story short - I didn't trade my PS2. It's worth next to nothing. I still got my PS3 and will let you know how it goes tomorrow when I hook it up. So, how does all this tie in with 'expectations'? Well, I went into GAME with high hopes of selling something dear to me that was once considered a 'must have' item. It was a little upsetting to learn that it's now worth about the same as a block of cheese...or a Sainsbury's ready meal...or six mars bars. Suffice to say, I did the maths. It dashed my expectations and left me feeling disappointed.

On the other hand, once I'd accepted that my PS2 was essentially worthless, I got into a lengthy and enthusiastic discussion about gaming with a bunch of people in the shop. My disappointing trade-in turned into a hilariously unexpected chat with people who shared a common interest. This is where Disney went wrong - Disney often based his movies on extravagant or turbulent relationships between characters from very different worlds. In truth, life is so complicated, fast and chaotic that in most cases we will only stop to invest time in people who seem to be standing on common ground and with whom forming and maintaining friendships feels easy and natural.

Life is rarely as rosy and predictable as childhood leads us to believe. Sometimes our expectations are exceeded by simple things like identifying a shared interest with a stranger and sometimes reality falls short and we're left with is a sense of disappointment. I guess all we can do is hope for the best or, at the very least, more than £2.50.