Expectation: The Treacherous Joy Thief

We all have expectations. We think that things are supposed to happen in a certain way and we wait in anticipation. And if things go according to our expectations, everything is good! But if they don’t, it’s doom and gloom. Expectation is dangerous to your present moment experience. It can steal your joy.

This is not to say that we should not have standards. We are not meant to accept everything that happens without question. The key is that we need to be in the present moment experiencing “what is” and doing what we can to make sure that we are adapting our next step accordingly so our lives move towards reaching our standards.

This is very different from measuring up to expectations! With an expectation, we have a clear image in our minds of how things should be. We then compare “what is” to “what should be” and judge the gap between them. This judgment causes us to have an emotional response to “what is” in the present moment based on the fact that it fails to meet our expectations. Even if “what is” represents progress or something equally good, our judgment of the failure to meet our expectations brings up emotions of fear, anger, frustration and stress.

I know I’m not the only one who does this! So let’s consider what this does to our enjoyment of the present moment. We are having an emotional response to a concept in our heads. The concept is the gap between our reality and our expectation. It is a thought and it is not a real thing. We react emotionally to something that is not real and have a full body stress response that makes us feel bad and possibly even sick. How foolish is it to do this to ourselves over something that is a construct of our imagination?

What would be a better focus? How about what is actually happening in the present moment? If we truly experience “what is” rather than our concept of it, we can have a real experience of being present. This may of course bring up its own set of emotions, but in the present moment, we can decide what to do next based on something real.

And as we’re getting good at this, we can observe “what is” and see how much better it is than our past experiences. If there is progress, we can celebrate in the present moment. We can also see what we can do in the present moment to help “what is” meet our standards. We can be excited and inspired by the possibilities open to us to direct our lives towards what we want.

Even if we catch ourselves having a stressed out moment over the fact that “what is” does not meet our expectations, just in doing so, we can bring ourselves back to the focus of experiencing “what is”. And this in itself is progress! Instead of wallowing in the misery of a failure (a colossal waste of the present moment), we can choose our next step and bring ourselves closer to what we want.

So take a look at your expectations. Can anything in your life measure up? Even when things are improving, is it enough or do you just beat yourself up because you still failed to meet your expectations?

Instead, try setting a standard and measure the gap between where you were and where you are today. If that gap is increasing and you are moving towards meeting your standard, celebrate! You can outsmart “The Treacherous Joy Thief” by managing your expectations and enjoying the present moment.