Imagine you have a ripe, juicy apple on an otherwise empty table. They eagerly pick it up, nibble and start trying it.
You already know what an apple should taste like, and if it is a little more acidic than expected, make a face, feel disappointed, and swallow it unsatisfied.
Or maybe the apple tastes exactly as you expected – nothing special at all. So you swallow without taking a break to enjoy the taste and continue your day.
In the first scenario, the apple was disappointing because it didn’t meet your expectations. In the second case it was too easy and not exciting because it met your expectations for a T.
Do you see the irony here?
It is either not good or not good enough.
Now imagine trying this: Eliminate your expectations of how the apple should taste. You don’t know and don’t pretend to know because you haven’t tried it yet. Instead, you’re really curious, impartial, and open to a variety of flavors.
They taste it and really pay attention to it. You notice the juiciness, the grainy texture of the skin, the sweet, spicy and sour flavors that swirl around your tongue at the same time, and all the other complex sensations that occur in your conscious mind when chewing. You didn’t know what it would taste like, but now you see that it’s brilliant! It’s brand new because you’ve never tried THIS apple before.
Mindfulness practitioners often refer to this as a “beginner’s mind”, but it’s really just the result of a mindset that is free from unnecessary expectations.
The apple can, of course, replace everything in your life: every event, every task, every social interaction, every person, every meal, every thought that comes to your mind anytime, anywhere. If you approach one of these questions with the expectation of how it should be, they will surely disappoint you somehow … or be too simple and not exciting to remember. And you will just move on to the next disappointment or non-exciting experience, and to the next and to the next and so on and so on, until you have spent your entire life in an endless cycle of things that you hardly like or hardly like to notice.
However, if you approach each event, task, social interaction, etc. without expectations and see this event, task, social interaction, etc. only at face value, you will really see it. You will really appreciate what it is. And you will really experience it as if you have never experienced anything because you have not.
This is the art of making life easier!
After clearing the air a bit, let’s look at three of the most common ways people use expectations to make life harder than it needs to be:
- You hesitate to avoid your anticipation of problems.
Let’s say you have postponed a large project at work because you fear it. Maybe it’s difficult and you feel overwhelmed. It’s a lot of hard work, and you expect to have to do many things that you may not be good at, expect mistakes, failures, and a lot of headaches. But in reality you are the one who gives you a headache. Realize this and let go of your expectations. This means you don’t know how this project will work. You go into it openly. Try it out and see how it works. And you learn from experience, no matter how.
To be honest, you can’t find peace if you avoid life. Life turns and requires that we turn with it. Instead of avoiding what needs to be done, take every task and experience as a challenge for growth. It either gives you what you want or it teaches you what the next step is.
And remember, finding peace in life doesn’t mean being in a place where there is no noise, no challenges, and no hard work. It means being in the middle of these things and staying calm in the heart and mind. (Read Great A New Earth.)
- You give up too soon when you find that things are not as easy as you expected.
This is the downside of the previous point. But here too, expectations stand in the way …
The best things in life are not always easy. A certain level of difficulty is necessary. Avoiding this truth only makes the difficult things more difficult. You know deep down that this is true, and yet you have started a new venture with the expectation that it will be amazing and you will do it with ease. And if it is inevitably more difficult than you thought and you are less successful than expected, you will be disappointed and discouraged. So you lose motivation and give up.
Now imagine that you let go of the imagination of how this endeavor will go, and you are simply open to what comes up. You can just do it without worrying about the result. You can just be with it right now. No matter how it turns out on the first try, you will learn what you need to know.
Conclusion: There are no shortcuts to places that are worth visiting. In the end, reality always cranks out. And the truth about how ordinary people achieve immense happiness and unbelievable success is that they leave their comfort zones and do the hard things that their educated, wealthy and qualified colleagues do not have the courage, drive or determination to do.
So stop for yourself to expect everything to be easy and start doing the (necessary) hard things openly today. I guarantee that you will be amazed at how remarkable you really are and how fast you can grow.
- People hurt you because they don’t behave as you expected.
This woman at work drives you crazy because “she doesn’t do her job the way she should” or because she’s kind of ruthless. Her annoyance stems from the expectation of how this woman should behave. It doesn’t act according to this ideal in your head and that’s why you suffer from it.
It is time to put aside this expectation that people will live up to their ideals … and are simply open to them. You will behave imperfectly, just like you. Of course, accepting people as they are does not mean that you are doing nothing. You can let go of the irritation and see how difficult it is, and use it as a lesson or opportunity to help or help them. Take the next logical step … without expecting them to love or follow your lesson, only with intending to help someone and be proactive.
And if your children are behaving badly, it’s the same problem – they don’t act according to your ideal. Of course not! No child behaves ideally like no adult. Are you behaving ideally? Not me. I am moody and rude when I am tired. I’m not proud of it, but I sometimes struggle to be happy and considerate. Everyone does. Your children fight and you can be compassionate and help them. That is, if you can let go of your expectations that they will behave ideally and accept them as imperfectly beautiful beings who just want to be happy like you.
Yes, it may be difficult to admit, but most of the problems we have with others don’t have much to do with them at all. We have subconsciously created many of the problems we think we have with them in our own mind. Maybe they did something that touched one of our fears or insecurities. Or maybe they didn’t do something we expected them to do. In any case, such problems are not about the other person, but about us.
And that’s fine. It simply means that these little problems are easier to solve. After all, we are responsible for our own decisions. We can decide whether we want to keep our heads overwhelmed with stressful expectations or instead open our minds to the positive realities that unfold before us.
All we need is a willingness to look at things a little differently – let go of what should be, and instead focus our energy on loving what is. (Angel and I discuss this in more detail in the “Happiness” and “Simplicity” sections of 1,000 little things that make happy, successful people different.)
Afterthought
Frankly, life is too short to be at war with yourself. The biggest disappointments in our lives are often the result of misguided expectations. Letting go of unnecessary expectations is your first step to happiness. Come from a mindset of peace and acceptance, and you can handle almost anything and grow beyond.
Mastering the art of making life easier is not as easy as you would expect or imagine. It takes practice. It means learning to be aware when you have these expectations, ideals and harmful fantasies. It means learning to see the irritation, anger, sadness, anxiety and mood swings as signals for the expectations you have and which you have not noticed. And it means letting them go!
That also takes a lot of practice. But that’s the joy of it. You drop the expectation that you are perfect in this exercise and just try. You learn from the experiment. They grow and improve gradually. Step by step. And every moment on the way is a miracle that you can perceive, appreciate and enjoy.
The floor is yours …
How did you make your life harder than it has to be? What expectations sometimes stand in your way? Leave a comment below and share your thoughts.
