Initial expectations and pot plants

When you first interact with someone, your mind goes into high acquisitions mode. This is the initial response whenever we experience anything for the first time. Our mind is like a sponge absorbing vast amounts of details about the new experience. This is a good thing evolutionarily speaking because we have a rapid response to new stimuli and therefore a course of action can be evaluated quickly.

Yet this evolutionary advantage has a down side when dealing with others, in the long term.

We are curious animals and love to learn but we also love to experience new things. Now we all know that we all have at sometime switched off during a conversation, we go on auto pilot. This is not a bad thing per se but it does leave us open to the fact we are not driving the car so to speak, we are not actively engaged. This is the vacuum where assumptions and expectations rule and exert their influence, the world of lazy folly.

Consider the way we tend to accumulate information,

  1. Initial uptake, mind is like a sponge absorbing vast amounts of data
  2. Evaluation of new stimuli/experience
  3. Response plan
  4. Course of action

These steps happen subconsciously and often go unnoticed, yet they often become expectations and even assumptions.

So what about the pot plants?

Initial expectations and even assumptions for that matter, often go unnoticed just like the pot around that small plant you bought. You look after the plant, interacting with it on a daily basis, watering, rotating the pot so it grows straight etc. Yet after a few years the plant seems unhappy and stifled. No matter how much you water it, the leaves always seem to droop from lack of water.

How could this be?

The plant has grown enough to be root-bound. Unbeknownst to you and out of sight of all, the roots have wrapped around the pot, strangling the very plant they are meant to feed. Any green thumbed person will tell you, you should have re-potted long ago. In fact generally speaking you should re-pot every 2-3 years depending on plant vigour.

Back to initial expectations…...

Your parents still treat you like a kid, even though you have kid of your own.
Your siblings still treat you like their baby brother or sister.
Your friends from high school still see you as you were way back then.

These all sound familiar and are all based on the same idea of the root bound pot plant. The initial interactions laid the ground work for the initial expectations and assumptions. Just like the roots of a plant, things change even if you don’t see them. So over time your initial expectations of a person or situation, even if accurate at the time, will drift.

It is these subconscious initial expectations that remain static, just like the pot around our plant and just like the pot we rarely re-evaluate (re-pot) them. So maybe we should revisit our initial expectations and be aware of them.