The brain doesn't function without expectations

The brain doesn't function without expectations. Essentially it's a veritable expectation machine.

— from The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations)

In the book

Then expectation, the forecasting instrument — and the one that quietly governs your happiness. The brain does not even function without expectations; it is, at bottom, an expectation machine, forever predicting what comes next. That is its genius and its trap, because almost all our suffering at the hands of other people is the gap between what we expected and what occurred. — The Instruments (Awareness/Perception/Expectations)

Also belongs to

Related