My favorite source of stories in the past 3 years has been Morgan Housel’s blog posts on the Collaborative Fund’s blog. I’ve shared so many of these on this blog (thank you, Morgan). Today’s post on expectations was very well done. The story below definitely hit home.
Dr. Dan Goodman once performed surgery on a middle-aged woman whose cataract had left her blind since childhood. The cataract was removed, leaving the woman with near-perfect vision. A miraculous success.
The patient returned for a checkup a few weeks later. The book Crashing Through writes:
Her reaction startled Goodman. She had been happy and content as a blind person. Now sighted, she became anxious and depressed. She told him that she had spent her adult life on welfare and had never worked, married, or ventured far from home – a small existence to which she had become comfortably accustomed. Now, however, government officials told her that she no longer qualified for disability, and they expected her to get a job. Society wanted her to function normally. It was, she told Goldman, too much to handle.
Every goal you dream about has a downside that’s easy to overlook.
