Expect/Prepare

It's been said to "expect the best, prepare for the worst." This quote is commonly attributed to someone who the present author neither knows intimately nor even by name. Alas, given that expectations, in reality, universally result in "the worst" possible outcome - which the aforementioned quote promulgates one to prepare for anyways - one wonders if expecting the best is merely a cruel abdication of reality, insomuch as that if one were to both expect the worst and prepare for the worst, one would frequently be without disappointment and wasted effort, while to expect the best leaves one constantly, irrevocably, crushed.