In 2003, on my way back home from deployment to the Middle East, I had one of the best movie experiences of my life; I went to see a movie without any knowledge of the plot or even its existence. This happened on the island of Oahu as our ship pulled in on its final port of call before heading back to Bremerton, Washington. Back then, and probably still, the Navy didn’t allow any correspondence back into “civilian life” while underway. Phone calls were regulated and monitored. Letters and emails scanned. The internet, for the most part, was in its infancy and blocked from our unfettered use. Not that the internet was sought after among sailors, I’d have gladly chosen a magazine to read for entertainment than access to the internet back then.

So landing in Hawaii after months and months of isolation was a bit of a shock. Normally hitting a port and hearing the call for liberty would have been hitting up the bar scene, but being back in the United States meant that I could no longer drink as a twenty year old. So we did the next best thing. We hit the beach of Waikiki then decided to find a movie to watch as the sun started to go down. As my shipmate and I scanned the movies playing I came across the name Quentin Tarantino as director and writer of a movie called “Kill Bill” that had opened a few weeks prior.

I’d seen no commercials for the movie. No billboards. No interviews. All I knew was that I’d immensely enjoyed Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs. Not so much for the violence (which is still pretty cool) but for the amazing writing. The guy can tell a story and his scene dialogue is pretty spectacular, especially in his earlier stuff.

Anyway. The movie starts and below is the opening screen. And I’m thinking to myself, what the hell did I just pay to watch?

Then follows one of the best movies I’d seen up to that point in my life. I couldn’t make whether I liked the out of order storytelling. Or the over the top violence. But the shock of not knowing what to expect, being back on American soil as a 20 year old, and having just spent nine months on a warship watching rom coms on the ship’s tv channel, made the movie feel extra special.

My love for that movie has waned a bit as the years have worn on, but Kill Bill Vol. 1 is still awesome. If it’s playing on tv I always stop to watch. The movie is a reminder of how much joy can be held for something I had no idea I wanted. I’ve thought a bunch about this experience over the years and have come to the conclusion that it wasn’t just that the movie was good, it was that I had no expectations whatsoever for the movie.

It was impossible for the movie to disappoint because no expectation had been set for it.

Nobody told me–critics, friends, conversation–of how good the movie was and that I needed to see it, or avoid it. Nothing had been built up by my mind’s imagination of what I might hope to see or experience. Of course I knew of Tarantino, and so I had a brief ten minute period from when we decided upon the movie and when the movie started to maybe set an expectation, a preconceived notion that this movie might be violent, might be well written…but kung fu? Throw back tropes from Bruce Lee era movies? Rza making the beats? The revenge plot line? Anime scenes? Japan? Assassins? All of that came bursting out at me giving me no time to think, only accept.

The result was a rare moment of non-thinking, non-judging, non-comparing. I could be totally present.

The same has happened to me a few times while traveling. Dubai for instance. I had no idea back in 2003 that a place called Dubai even existed. I’d known of the UAE, but I thought the country was a secluded third world desert kingdom where maybe a handful of royalty were rich. I was completely ignorant to the place. One day the captain of the ship I served aboard randomly told us we were going to pull into port into Dubai.

I couldn’t go online and research the place. I didn’t have any travel books or movies or shows to think back to. So when I stepped off the boat and took in the city for the first time I was amazed at what I saw. Dubai was in no way a third world country, instead it glittered in excess and extravagance. I was completely shocked. The place couldn’t disappoint because there was no fantasy idea of Dubai created in my mind that real Dubai could destroy. No, instead the opposite happened. My mind was completely open and willing for everything I saw and did. Everything was new. Everything fresh and dazzling. I had no sights to see. No places to go. No famous dishes to eat. Instead, I just wandered the city with friends and did whatever felt right in spur of the moment decisions–namely Red Bull vodka at the sailors club.

It was the opposite to how I sometimes feel traveling these days. I do my research on a city, find all the cool places I want to see, eat, and do. Then I spend my time in the new city rushing from one place to the other.

Removing Expectations from Personal Finance?

I get upset when I don’t save X amount each month. I internally cringe when the stock market has consecutive down days and I check my portfolio. I’ll go ahead and admit this, knowing the holidays are right around the corner, I can’t help but feel frustration knowing that we’ll be spending more than usual because of Christmas.

All of this frustration stems from expectations I’ve set for myself. If I just came into each month with the mindset of “I’ll save what I can” instead of “I make this much and need to save 50% percent of that…” I’d be much happier. I might not achieve my goals in a timely manner or ever, but I’d reduce a huge amount of stress from life.

Even in viewing my own near future, my post work life, if you will, I have a vision–an expectation– of what that retirement is going to be like. The same goes for my work life. I have all these expectations for what my next job is going to be like, how I’ll be better and learn from past mistakes, how my commute will be, what my possible raise will be etc.

And for my children. I expect them to do well in school. So far that’s happening, but it’s not an easy road. I expected them to take to sports after school and excel. My youngest has, but my oldest has struggled with sports in general, it’s just not her thing. And to be honest, I’ve been secretly disappointed by that. Not in her, but in things not going how they were portrayed in my mind for years. My own expectations caused my distress.

If I know that having expectations creates disappointment; how do I remove expectations from life?

A more realistic approach might be to ask; how do I reduce expectations from my life? And I’ve been asking myself that question lately. So far I have a couple of ideas on how to do that for myself.

Like right now, I expect to retire in 2025. I’ve saved quite a bit less this year than anticipated. 2022’s bear market didn’t help the situation. I’m still tracking for 2025, but it’s looking less and less certain. If I don’t retire in 2025 I’ll feel disappointed. Angry maybe, that I wasn’t as diligent as I could have been. The plan was to retire after the school year ends in June of 2025. So now I’m telling myself, mentally preparing, that maybe we work the entire year and pull the trigger December 31st 2025. Or maybe when the school year ends in 2026.

Or maybe I don’t FIRE at all.

Maybe I keep working and coast FIRE.

Maybe I retire later than expected but don’t end up traveling.

I’m moving the goal posts. Planting seeds in my mind that things might change. That things will change.

Suffering stems from our inability to accept change. It’s wanting things to be a certain way that sets the scene for disappointment and frustration.

Still, I can’t help but feel like trying to reduce or soften my goals is somehow accepting defeat or being weak. It feels pessimistic, something that goes against my optimistic nature of hoping for the best outcome.

Is avoiding suffering and disappointment really the way to go about life?

FIRE isn’t walking into a movie theatre with no idea of what sort of story is going to be told on the screen in front of you. I can’t just blindly walk into FIRE, as fantastic as that would be. No, FIRE is all about detailed preparation and strategy. It’s about planning down to the month money flows. It’s about holding course. It’s about delayed gratification. FIRE is an expectation that discipline will win.

Is there a knife edge that can be walked where balance between not giving a damn and giving a damn can be walked? Other than accepting change, I haven’t found it. To move forward and achieve goals, suffering from broken expectations is part of the deal. I don’t believe anyone who ever achieved anything great decided to throw away all expectations in search for happiness instead of results. I can’t hope to achieve my goals without having expectations for myself and for those around me.

Happiness, while amazing and the best part of life, can’t be sustained permanently. In the ebb and flow of life so goes the ups and downs. Without darkness there is no light. Without suffering there is no happiness.

I’ll end the post by a quote from a Mr. Dickens, who wrote the book Great Expectations in 1861. His main character Pip, an orphan boy, goes through a bunch of suffering as he pursues at nearly all costs his longing to become a gentleman. Pip’s suffering is due to the expectations he sets for himself.

Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but—I hope—into a better shape.

Charles Dickens

So yeah, I will suffer from disappointment from time to time because I have great expectations for my life. If a bit of suffering here and there is the cost of achieving my great early retirement goal, then so be it. Sometimes things should be hard. Sometimes we do have to face a bit of disappointment. Sometimes we have to suffer.

While I might not be able to avoid setting expectations for myself when it comes to money, I can certainly pursue dropping expectations when it comes to the little things in life. Maybe that means going to a restaurant without checking all the reviews first. Putting the phone down. Planning a bit less. Being more flexible and spontaneous. I don’t think I could ever recreate the ripe “no expectation” conditions that led to me watching that first Kill Bill movie. But I might be able to get close. Maybe that means hopping on a boat, turning my phone off, and sailing away from civilization for a decent amount of time. Time away from civilization and the internet….ah, now that sounds like something I can get on board with.