EXPECTATIONS
It seems like everyone is talking about staying positive and happy these days. I hear it daily in my practice as well as everywhere I go. Some will delineate this positivity and happiness when the result of what they are presently focusing on comes about. While others seem to define it in the daily life of lowering their expectations and as a result avoiding disappointments. This leaves me wondering how to create the best framework within my own mental being in order to find this true positivity and happiness that we are all in search for.
I ask you for a moment, to try to reflect back to a time when you were a child and wanted a specific toy. Can you recall the excitement you felt in the waiting process? Can you remember opening the package only to find that something just seemed to take over? As if a sense of disregard to the happiness or the abolishment of the excitement.
Now lets fast forward a bit and recall a time when you perhaps were planning a romantic vacation. You prepare the entire vacation, you don’t miss a detail, then you arrive to your destination and you realize that it will be raining the entire week. You get angry, you demand your money back and blame the weather for ruining your entire vacation.
If you are an adult, you have probably come to terms that life is simply unfair. Life is not perfect, the right person doesn’t always win and things don’t always go as planned.
I’m not here to tell you that it is fair, or that the toy should have brought you happiness, or that the vacation is not ruined. Instead, I’m here to tell you that its not about any of those things. Nothing we expect will ever bring us happiness. Happiness is achieved when we stop waiting for it and instead actually enjoying every moment in the journey towards the final result. The waiting process for the toy is the true essence in that experience, the idea that the vacation is not ruined and in reality it was all about being able to spend the quality time together.
Eckhart Tolle says, “ All you really need is to accept this moment fully.” I can’t agree more!
When we cease the expectations of others and of the end result in whatever it is we are presently living with, only this is when we achieve extreme happiness and positivity. You can choose to be upset and disappointed or choose to shift to a way of being that makes you feel better. How you choose to perceive a situation is what determines your state.
Now ask yourself, what expectation can you let go of today?
