Arouse no Exaggerated Expectations on entering

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My latest truffle of a read is Balthasar Gracian. This titbit about expectations was an especially tasty morsel of wisdom I wanted to share with you.

Some background: Balthasar Gracian lived in the 1600s as a jesuit priest and wrote 300 aphorisms (a pithy observation that contains a general truth, such as, “if it ain't broke, don't fix it.”) which came to be known as 'The Art of Worldly Wisdom', much in the line of Sun Tzu's "The Art of War". Here goes...

It is the usual ill-luck of all celebrities not to fulfil afterwards the expectations beforehand formed of them. The real can never equal the imagined, for it is easy to form ideals but very difficult to realise them. Imagination weds Hope and gives birth to much more than things are in themselves. However great the excellences, they never suffice to fulfil expectations, and as men find themselves disappointed with their exorbitant expectations they are more ready to be disillusionised than to admire. Hope is a great falsifier of truth; let skill guard against this by ensuring that fruition exceeds desire. A few creditable attempts at the beginning are sufficient to arouse curiosity without pledging one to the final object. It is better that reality should surpass the design and is better than was thought. This rule does not apply to the wicked, for the same exaggeration is a great aid to them; they are defeated amid general applause, and what seemed at first extreme ruin comes to be thought quite bearable.

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