The prevailing feeling among military supporters of Ya Hai Sia Khong, or do not let a coup go to waste, will be the bane of Gen Prayuth Chan-ocha throughout his year-long attempt at national reform.
Like it or not, the coup leader has become the bearer of all the country's problems.
Gen Prayuth has no one to blame. He took over the country's administrative power. He inherited all its problems also.
It does not help that the list is diverse and long.
Complaints that som tam on Hua Hin beach is too expensive. Thailand's notoriety as the rent-a-womb hub of Asia. Dek wan or motorcycle racers prowling Bangkok streets. Allegedly unfair energy prices. The country's falling consumption power and GDP.
As the National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) has declared itself the only power in town, it's only natural that the public expects it to take care of these and many other issues which they feel are bothering them.
The problem is, how?
Gen Prayuth may have succeeded in manoeuvring a military takeover, but he is no superman.
He has about a year to reform the country. He is supposed to make people see that things have become better, feel more happiness and have reasons to be hopeful for the country's future.
Even with the authoritarian power the coup council enjoys at the moment, it's impossible to tick off all the items on the country's endless list of problems and add new entries to the still-short list for happiness.
Truth be told, the NCPO is unlikely to solve a single problem of illegal motorcycle racing in a year, let alone tackling exorbitant charges for som tam and restructuring the complex energy price structure at the same time.
Its attempt to win easy favour by standardising lottery prices has shown how a seemingly simple task can turn out to be more complicated, involving multiple interest groups and unyielding resistance to change.
Three months after the NCPO announced lottery tickets must be sold at no more than 92 baht, most vendors still charge more than 100 baht for them.
And the coup council can do nothing. The NCPO seems more than content to leave the unfinished businesses by the side as it moves on to the more important tasks of launching the legislative assembly and reform council.
The problem with these "more important tasks", of course, is that they are but expanded versions of the lottery ticket, public van and cost-of-living issues which the NCPO had tried its hand at earlier, and failed.
Some of the 11 areas that the NCPO earmarked for reform are perennial issues that will take not a year but probably a decade to work out.
Education reform? How many times have we talked about this, and how many times have efforts been made to achieve it?
The result evidently is to have arrived here where we mainly agree that our educational system is so bad we need yet another reform.
There is no reason yet to see how this latest attempt will make a difference.
But that is not all. The NCPO is set to devise plans for other equally gargantuan tasks, including judicial, public health and media reforms.
How all these strategies for the future could come out of a group of only 250 representatives selected by a less-than-inclusive process is already a big challenge for the coup council.
Whether the visions will meet people's various expectations — and how to foster an agreement and the unity needed to make them come true — is another test for the NCPO.
The crucial question at the moment, however, is how will the coup council manage people's expectations? Right now, it runs the risk of ending up being a jack of all trades without achievements to show for it, forced to execute too many tasks over a relatively short period of only one year.
The NCPO has repeatedly asked for time to prove itself.
The coup leader Gen Prayuth specifically told people to refrain from criticising the military as it goes about implementing the reform plan.
The general really should have been careful what he wishes for.
Without constructive criticism from people who might have more experience than the 250 to be chosen for the reform council, and input from the general public, it's unlikely the reform roadmap will be well-formed.
Without public participation, the NCPO is by itself as it shoulders the heavy burden of not wasting a "good coup".
Atiya Achakulwisut is Contributing Editor, Bangkok Post.