I once had a colleague who said he wasn’t able to stop snoozing his alarm clock. There was no way for me to talk him out of it. It was a fact of life to him: the sky was blue, the table was holding his laptop, and he couldn’t stop snoozing his alarm clock.

I found it extremely unlikely that this was the case, but more perplexing was why he thought this way. I’m certain there’s been a day he didn’t snooze his alarm clock—for example, a day he woke up before his alarm. If not, was there a sleep disorder, or something else influencing his behavior?

By contrast, I was in the completely other camp: I knew I controlled my behavior with snoozing. I believed this because I’d kept my snoozing behavior in control ever since I was a young boy. I’ve never missed an appointment, bus, or anything because I slept through my alarm clock or snoozed too often.

These sorts of things are what I’m interested in exploring with my series on expectations. I want to expand and widen the horizon of possibilities that are within your influence and control.

I’m also definitely interested in understanding the limitations of our perceptions. After all, there are a bunch of things we’re persuaded into thinking we fully influence and control, that we don’t—these stories and narratives cause all sorts of anxieties when we try to control things that we can’t.