Expectation Is the System
A Structural Alternative to Blame
Have you ever heard the idea that disappointment is not the result of something happening unexpectedly but the result of our faulty expectation? When we experience disappointment, our first response is to look outside of ourselves and blame what we believe is the cause of our disappointment. A friend cancels at the last minute and we blame the friend, when the real cause of our disappointment was expecting the friend to follow through and keep their commitments. The cause of our disappointment was not the friend but our faulty expectation of the friend. In short, we trusted someone that did not deserve our trust. Who is responsible for placing that trust on your friend? Is it your friend’s fault that we misjudged them?
If we focus on our responsibility to only trust things that are trustworthy, then we begin to understand The Steele Method (TSM). At its core, TSM is a system for aligning our expectations with the physical world. It is through this alignment, and its reliance on the constraint inherent in the physical world, that we gain structural clarity. Eastern mysticism calls enhanced understanding of the physical world enlightenment, along with the understanding that the alignment of expectations with the physical world leads to reduced suffering caused by misaligned expectations.
All human systems fail because those benefiting the most become lazy and allow themselves to be consumed by greed. It’s not a matter of if a human system will fail, the only question is when the system will fail. TSM prepares us to see that truth early and respond with the tools to diagnose the present and build new systems for the future.
When expectations decouple from the physical world
The physical world is indifferent to your thoughts. If you hold expectations that are indifferent to the physical world, you will lose and the physical world will win, every time. Denial of the physical may work for a time, and if you have enough money, you can deny the physical your whole life surrounded by sycophants, attorneys and private jets. But in the end, the rich return to dust just like the poor, without any regard for the opinion of either party.
Denial describes one of the psychological mechanisms whereby we refuse to test our expectations. Much of our suffering comes from expectations that were never structurally tested. We assume outcomes, predict behavior, or rely on others without examining whether those assumptions are grounded in evidence. These expectations, including those based on denial, often feel reasonable up until they fail. Then we experience loss, confusion, blame, and disappointment.
TSM treats these moments not as moral failures, but as informational ones. When expectations don’t align with physical reality, the resulting pain is not punishment—it’s feedback.
TSM gives us a framework to use that feedback. It helps us trace our disappointment back to the structural assumptions that produced it. And it gives us the tools to revise those assumptions moving forward. TSM allows you to take full responsibility for yourself, which allows you to build powerful relationships with others.
Why Misaligned Expectations Persist
We don’t hold onto faulty expectations because we enjoy suffering, we hold onto them because they provide coherence, identity, and emotional protection. Untested expectations seem efficient, until they aren't.
When we rely on patterns that once seemed to work or on social expectations that once held society together, we create models of the world that can't adjust. Those models become indifferent to the physical world until they break.
The Steele Method is a toolkit for diagnosing and fixing the breaking points now and building new systems for the future.
What TSM Offers Instead
TSM doesn’t offer comfort through belief or any type of faith. TSM makes no claims about whether the universe has a beginning or what happens after death. From the perspective of TSM, thoughts untethered from the physical, like where we go after death, is noise that detracts from the moment, the place where moral decisions are made.
By linking thoughts to the physical world, TSM teaches that all systems—whether personal or institutional—survive by adapting to change. Adaptation depends on accurate information. And accurate information requires structures that prioritize verification over assumption.
Students of TSM learn to:
Identify expectations that are failing to produce reliable results
Trace those expectations to their linguistic or conceptual source
Revise their internal models so that expectations match physical constraint
This is not mindset coaching. It is not spiritual metaphor. It is not intellectual abstraction.
It is system design.
Self-Knowledge as Expectation Audit
Lectures 5 and 6 of the Steele Method introduce "the machine"—our internal pattern system that silently generates expectations. These patterns are shaped by memory, culture, language, and emotion. Some are useful. Many are not.
TSM doesn’t aim to silence the machine. It aims to observe it, audit it, and revise it. You learn to ask:
Where did this expectation come from?
Can it be tested?
Does it match physical reality?
This process doesn’t eliminate surprise, but it does make surprise a diagnostic tool by turning disappointment into data.
You and you alone are responsible for your thoughts and actions, which includes how you feel about yourself. If you feel conflicted, stop looking outside of yourself, take charge and move forward. What other people think does not materially affect you any more than your thoughts affect the sunrise. What matters is keeping yourself aligned with the physical world so you can diagnose the issues and find solutions. Understanding yourself is the foundation of knowledge.