Blindsided, Just served with papers!

[TimeHeals]

I read somewhere that we habituate to good things rather quickly and to bad things rather slowly, and our expectations reflect this.

For example, one might imagine winning the lottery would make them happy, and if they actually win the lottery, it does make them happy ... for a very short time. Very quickly our expectation about being happy will shift back to our "normal".

When things are bad, on the other hand, we tend to expect things to remain bad for longer than they are likely to remain bad, and yet we tend to try to change these things more quickly if anything offers any kind of hope for change.

The "reality check" , as you put it, is that "No matter where you go, there you are" (Yogi Berra quote). If there's something fundamentally skewed about your perspective, it will tend to re-assert itself until you work through it.

This is why I ask folks that seem to be "stuck" with an expectation that they will always be unhappy to make those "gratitude lists". There are little excercises that can help shift our perspectives and bring them back into a healthier balance.