“Everything you focus on grows.” [Korejs]

How much time and energy do you devote to your expectations (or expectations, if you choose that word)?

The best, the most realistic, definition I have read about expectations is – “scheduled disappointments”. And, importantly, expectations are often closely related to feeling happy, or more precisely, unhappy, because when what we expect - voila! - does not materialize, we feel disappointed and hurt. And the greater the expectations, the deeper the pain that follows them. But what is even more surprising - we often feel unhappy even in moments when our expectations are fulfilled! Why? Because we are most grateful in our lives for those good things and events that surprise us unexpectedly - would you agree? Let's transfer this story to many of the situations we recognize in the context of everyday relationships: you expect (I expect, he expects..) that your loved one will help with the homework. Therefore, you will be disappointed, angry or upset when he doesn't. But on the other hand, you won't be happy and grateful when he realizes those expectations, right? Depending on the specific situation, you might rather be satisfied because he is taking part in a domestic move that, after all, is nothing supernatural or heroic; surprised (he really has finally washed the floor!); victorious, that finally there is a fair division of work, and the like... On the other hand, when you don't wait for your loved one at home, and you wake up from your day's work in one step with exhaustion and weakness, but when you step over the threshold of the house, you see that your loved one has cleaned everything (and even prepared dinner for you!), that's the moment when you feel truly blessed and grateful.

Gratitude is the key to the feeling of happiness. And everything that drives gratitude out of your life also scares away happiness.

And nothing destroys feelings of gratitude more than expectations. Gratitude and expectation are like two sides of a coin that are mutually exclusive and never meet.

Where and how do our expectations arise? And why?

"Expectations are most often a misunderstood result of our reactions, thoughts and emotional heritage. We confuse desires with needs, loneliness with emptiness, conversation with communication, ideals with reality, and ourselves with our relationships. We do not distinguish between what we can get only from ourselves and what we can find in relationships." [Korejs]

Respectively, we often try to get or expect from the other what only we can give ourselves and vice versa - we look for what the relationship can give us.

In such a situation, it doesn't matter how long or hard we try - our path will never end and the goal will continue to hang like a red rag of challenge, always out of reach. Living in anticipation, it is impossible to get satisfaction from your life and achieve a "sense of completeness" neither by getting married, nor by having children, nor by moving to a better, more beautiful home, or by changing your profession. Because these are all searches "outside", where, as a rule, there is nothing that can bring us satisfaction or happiness.

The belief that we can become absolutely perfect, and the tireless pursuit of it from the very beginning, is the rolling of Sisyphus's stone. Our expectations live in the world of thought and fantasy, and often the gulf between it and reality is unfathomably wide. In the best case, we develop in ourselves the strength to live on the shore of reality, in the worst case - we try to climb over this gorge, using as bridges everything that promises a "helping hand" - money, sex, alcohol, helplessness, power or any other addiction.

Growth in this context is about how we are able to accept the imperfection of life, because one of the main currencies of dissatisfaction is exchanging what we already have for what we "want most".

Solution?

Gratitude. Gratitude for what we have, what has been achieved, what belongs, what has been understood, experienced, encountered, for what has been overcome and won, for what we thought was self-evident, for what still awaits us and what we can feel... And, finally, gratitude to all those who have helped us, starting with the closest - their care and help, which we receive as a normal part of everyday life and which we can count on even in moments of crisis - ending with a rebuke from a passerby for an unclosed bag, a lunch paid for by a colleague or a neighbor holding the front door.

What would life be like without expectations?

We would be able to accept reality - our life - as it is. We would be able to accept people without forcing them to fit into the molds or boxes we have prepared for them. We would be able to see what is happening to us and around us. We would live a life where there would be no reason to be disappointed or angry about what is happening. Or...- they would leave us as quickly and easily as they came. Because it would not be able to take root.

“Everything you give your attention to grows.”

May you and I manage to grow our own sense of happiness by taking care of the favorable soil of gratitude every day!

Photo: Pinterest