I often struggle with expectations. I want things to be different than they are.
Take this blog, for example. I want it to be read by loads of people, but it’s not (yet). There are many reasons for this, not least that I’m not making enough of an effort at the moment to get it read because I’m still trying to form the habit.
When I started it again, I wanted to be posting every day: I saw myself waking up at 6am every morning, hammering out a tight, concise, witty, powerful post and putting it out for the world to see. Since I’ve really started to focus on it and carve out the time to write posts in the early morning I’ve still not managed to put out a post every single day. But I’m still trying.
Take exercise: it’s the same every time for me. I make a resolution to get back in the gym and I dive in head-first, going all out in my first session back and being almost unable to walk or lift my arms over my head, so I give up.
Take grief: whenever you lose someone, you think you’ll get passed it, but it creeps up on you every now and again and takes you completely by surprise. Or, conversely, you can hear of the death of a friend and feel almost numbed by it, without the kind of histrionics that you expect.
Expecting things to be different will never work. There are plenty of mindfulness teachers and practitioners who will tell you to completely let go of expectations, but unless you’re ‘full zen’ that’s almost impossible to do.
More useful, I find, is to recognise when something doesn’t meet your expectations, and look calmly at your own reaction to it. When I don’t manage to hit my target of publishing a post every single day, I feel bad about it, then note the things that made me miss my slef-appointed target: last week, for example, I was quite ill on Thursday and Friday and wasn’t able to spare the brain power to do both my job and this blog, so the job came first, and when I wasn’t working I had to let my brain swich off.
Similarly when grief hits, I try to see when I’m not reacting the way I ‘expected’ to react, and understand that whatever my reaction, that’s OK. Because we all react differently to things, all the time.
So the next time you catch yourself in a situation where you expectations haven’t been met, ask yourself if those expectations really matter, and look carefully at your reaction to the situation. There is no right or wrong to any of this, but clinging to expecations after the fact will only dampen or spoil an experience.