The general form of the false expectations

After we presented some of the forms of manifestation of the false expectations (and saw that they are the real cause of the wrong judgments), we could try to identify their general formula suitable for other specific situations, too.

First of all, it will be noticed the presence of “should” in this formula (respectively “shouldn’t”) used with the value of the categorical imperative

(“It should be in this way; it’s impossible to be in another one”).

For example: “People should always be good.”; “Any man (all the people) should be good.” etc.

In these cases the false expectation has the form of the labeling or of the inflexibility, because it’s obvious that some people are good and some people are bad or, even the same person can be good sometimes or can be bad other time.

It can also be noticed the presence of “always” and/or “never”; they are specific to the inflexibility.

Thus, a general form of the false expectations could be formulated in the following way:

“The phenomenon X (object, reality, state, etc)
- SHOULD
- ALWAYS/NEVER
- BE (to do, to become, to want, to go, to speak, to behave, etc)
- IN A CERTAIN WAY (in the following way…).“

As we’ll see after the case studies made in the Chapter IV, this general formula is the root of any wrong judgment.

To know and memorize it, will help us to identify sooner and more promptly the deformations of judgments specific to the anger and the sadness, to the laziness and the greed, etc.