Out of many things one can think of, there is one big thinking pattern that causes misery. Buddhists had this figured out a long while back. What causes such misery is our own colossal expectations of ourselves and the world. Expectations is like the slow knife that twists and turns inside you before slowly robbing you of your internal peace.
We have expectations regarding almost everything in life. We have it with people and ourselves. We have it with the products we use and the sports teams we support. We have expectations regarding our bank balance, our future, our careers and our lives. Think about it and one will find that the rabbit hole goes much deeper than you would have previously thought. Our whole life runs on our expectations.
Here is the problem, with expectations comes suffering. When one has high expectations, the bar is set high to be happy and content with your performance. Anything lower is blasphemy. It leads to fault-finding and nitpicking and it’s easy to find yourself drowning in a river of anxiety and stress.
Go to a movie with high expectations and you will most likely come out of the hall disappointed. Whereas, watching a bad movie with very low expectations would not be that bad. You might even come out smiling. And that’s the thing with life.
One will always have expectations, no matter what you do. But here is a cheat code to reduce your misery (and maybe be a bit more happier).
Lower your expectations
Lowering expectations always works well. If one overshoots and exceeds the target, its bliss. It’s always so much more fun to exceed your expectations. That doesn’t mean I shouldn’t dream big. It doesn’t mean I shouldn’t learn and grow.
But it is more like, it’s the will to do the minimum and overshoot as much as you can if possible. My greatest pleasures in life have always been overshooting my targets.
Since I lowered my expectations some time ago, I haven’t been miserable much. It helps me enjoy the task at hand and focus on the present. I do much better these days. I still have high expectations of certain aspects of my life. It’s hard to have low expectations constantly but I try. I guess that’s what we all should do. Try.