Free Yourself From Expectations

A life without expectations is a life lived in freedom. Expectations are nothing more than the demands we place on ourselves, others and life—and they gum-up our lives with disappointment and misery. Expectations bind us to many of the wants in our lives that can never be fulfilled. When our expectations aren’t met, when our wants don’t materialize, we are left bitter and resentful and angry.

Expectations are head-games. They’re how we put our wants into motion in our minds. We expect that we should never make any mistakes at work; or we expect that our boyfriend should know that we want a certain bracelet for our birthday; or we expect that eventually we will meet the right person and live happily ever after. Sometimes we expect that people should always agree with us or that everyone should like us. And we expect all of these sorts of things because we mistakenly believe that our happiness is dependent upon them.

So when our expectations fall through the floor, so does our happiness. Instead of getting that bracelet for our birthday, we got a book of movie passes. We’re disappointed and mad. The funny thing is that we love movies and we would have been thrilled with the movie passes if we just hadn’t been holding so tight to the expectation that a certain someone should have known we wanted the bracelet. We aren’t bitter because our birthday was forgotten or because we didn’t get a good gift. We’re disappointed because we linked our happiness to an unreasonable expectation. And we’re mad because we still want what we wanted (the bracelet) and we aren’t willing to let go of our inner-demand to have it.

Acceptance of life on life’s terms is the best alternative to having expectations. I learned a long time ago to replace my expectations with an acceptance of reality as it is—not as I would have it be.

For example, I no longer sit around for weeks in advance expecting that certain people should remember my birthday, much less give me the perfect gifts that I’d choose for myself. Instead, I’m thrilled if someone does remember my birthday. In fact, just this year I had a small surprise birthday party thrown for me while visiting some friends in Los Angeles and it totally took me by surprise. Because I had no expectations the party was pure joy for me. And even if there had been no party, I’d have been happy going with the flow of the day just as it was.

It’s fine to have wants. It’s not fine to demand that they become reality. And it’s certainly not fine to focus so much on our unmet wants that they become an obsession. This leads us down a path to self-destruction and depression. Life doesn’t exist to meet our demands, nor does God.

When I pray now I ask for what I want and then I let go of the want. I don’t demand it. I leave the door open for my Higher Power to decide what’s best for me and I go with the flow of that energy, with the flow of the day as it unfolds; whether I get what I want or not. There are blessings to be experienced in every moment of every day. We just have to be open to them by letting go of our expectations and demands.