Are Expectations Good Or Bad?

Are having expectations helpful or harmful for us in the long run? The danger with expectations is our expectations is that sometimes they aren't met, which can cause us stress, anger, and anxiety. And even life fulfills our expectations; they only give us a little satisfaction. Explore positive ways to live life with or without expectations.

Transcript

Welcome to the Happiness Podcast.

I'm Dr.

Robert Puff.

Expectations,

We can have a lot of them.

We work hard all week,

We save our money,

And then on the weekend we make reservations at our favorite restaurant.

When we get there,

We have expectations that we'll be able to find parking.

We'll have expectations that they'll have our favorite dish.

We'll have expectations that the service will be great because it's our favorite restaurant and everything will just be wonderful.

And sometimes our expectations work out,

But sometimes they don't.

And you know what's amazing?

One bad expectation that doesn't come true can ruin the whole event that we were looking forward to,

That we had expectations about.

So when we get to our restaurant,

We are able to find parking,

The service is good as always,

And the main menu was excellent.

The appetizers were superb.

The dinner drinks were as good as always.

But then when it comes time to order our dessert,

Which we love so much,

They don't have it.

They ran out earlier and they don't have what we want.

And our expectations of ending our evening with that exquisite dessert ruins the whole evening.

Even though everything up to that point had met our expectations,

Except for that one dessert dish.

And they had other options,

But we wanted our dish.

And because they didn't have it,

It ended up ruining our evening.

Even though it was a beautiful evening up to that point.

Now this may seem like a silly example,

Even though it's true.

It happens all the time.

I'm sure you've seen it at restaurants where people get very upset over one thing and it really ruins their evening.

And why is that?

Why would one expectation of getting our favorite dessert ruin a perfectly beautiful evening?

And here's another caveat that we need to be aware of in regards to expectations.

Not only when they're not fulfilled can we potentially get very disappointed,

But in many ways our expectations don't give us any bang for the buck.

Because when they're fulfilled,

That was our expectation.

So instead of getting something for these expectations,

Often it's just fulfilling what we expected.

For example,

If we have the expectation that by the time we're 30 we're gonna be with our life partner and we're gonna own a home.

If when we celebrate our 30th birthday,

One of these two factors isn't in place,

We're gonna be disappointed.

But let's say we do have a house that we're able to make payments on and we did find our life partner.

Probably most of the time we're not celebrating that gift of having someone that we love and being so thankful that we're able to lock in a good payment towards a house that we're purchasing now.

Most likely we just take it for granted because it was our expectation.

When we expect something,

We don't see the gift in it anymore.

We don't see the novelty.

We don't see the beauty in it.

We expect it.

If we expect to be healthy,

We don't celebrate every day,

I'm so glad I'm healthy and don't have any pains.

But when we don't feel good and have the aches and pains and we expect it to be healthy,

Then we're miserable because we expect to be healthy all the time.

And that isn't how life always works.

So our expectations can get us into a lot of trouble on two fronts.

One,

When they're not met,

They disappoint us.

Two,

When they're fulfilled,

They don't do a whole lot for us because we expected it.

We lose the joy,

The excitement,

The thrill of the newness of things that we are so thankful for that when they happen we can say thank you.

So imagine that you meet your life partner,

Someone that you're so excited because potentially you might be able to spend the rest of your life with them.

But you know that's only potentially.

What if instead you said,

I'm so grateful that I have you today and all the joys and wonders of life I get to experience with you.

I don't know if you'll be here tomorrow but I'm so thankful for today.

How often do we see people that are in long-term relationships thinking that in their heads or sharing their joys about being with that person that day with their partners?

I think it's seldom because we expect things and when we expect things we stop being grateful for what we have right now.

Expectations can get us into a lot of trouble.

It isn't that we can't have things that we want.

It isn't that we can't have goals but more it's seeing life as a beautiful gift and when we see it that way we're thankful for things that were given and when things aren't there that we maybe think probably should be there but they're not then we're not disappointed.

We're like oh how do I adjust to this?

And if we begin to embrace this,

This living without expectations with gratefulness for what life does bring it's amazing how much our lives can go better.

When we come home to our kids and we realize they're a gift we don't know if we're gonna have them for the rest of our lives.

Things happen in life that change.

Life is impermanent.

So when we come home we see them we think I'm so grateful to have you today.

I'm so grateful that you're in my life.

Thank you.

Or when we go to the store or get on the phone and have to deal with someone on the other line or customer service and we're given good treatment.

When we're given kindness.

When we're shown a lot of respect.

We're thankful.

We think wow that was wonderful.

That was such great service.

I'm so thankful that that happened.

And when it doesn't happen we're like oh what I need to do to deal with this?

Maybe nothing.

A lot of things are not in my control.

They can't fix what I need help with.

So I'll just move on to go on to what I can do.

We don't try to control things.

We more celebrate the gifts that life give us and the things that aren't maybe the way that we would prefer.

We say well I would have preferred the other way but I didn't have expectations.

So now I'm gonna make this work.

Let's say for example we work hard and we do our job well but for various reasons a divorce,

Financial struggles,

The turn of the stock market,

Health concerns that cause us not to be able to work as long as we wanted to.

Now we reach retirement age and we don't have as much money.

We were hopeful that we could have traveled but we're not gonna be able to.

So instead we read books,

We take courses online,

We get together with friends,

We celebrate that our health is still good.

We focus on the things that we do have instead of focusing on the things that we expected and don't have now.

See our expectations can get us into a lot of suffering.

We're here not to suffer.

The way we do that is by in many ways keeping our expectations at a low level.

I know we're gonna expect things but when they don't happen we quickly ingest and say well that isn't what I expected but I'm gonna do this instead.

I'm gonna savor this instead.

I think for example a lot of people have expectations for when the holidays come.

Here in the United States a lot of people expect Christmas to go very well or to go a certain way with their expectations and when it doesn't it's very hard for them.

And it isn't that the holiday is causing them to suffer.

It's their expectations.

When we have expectations that things need to go a certain way before we're gonna enjoy that event then that can set us up for suffering.

We just don't need to suffer.

It's unnecessary but we need to keep our expectations low.

So then whatever life brings and sometimes life brings us things that we would prefer weren't there.

We adjust.

We adjust very quickly and that's one of the great benefits of keeping our expectations low.

But the other great benefit is that we end up really celebrating that which we are given in life because we don't expect it.

And so when something magical beautiful happens we really see it.

We actually feel it and are so grateful for that gift of life because life gives us gifts.

But when we have expectations we stop seeing them.

I remember once watching a show about a woman who worked in one of the nicest hotels in the world in Dubai and she was sharing that the guests that stay there and it cost an astronomical amount of money to stay in this hotel had a lot of expectations that things had to be perfect.

She was describing how one guest who came regularly needed a certain type of cigar in his room ready for him to smoke when he got there.

And it had to be imported and had to have all these qualifiers.

And one time when he came they weren't able to do that.

They had forgotten.

I don't know what had happened and it ruined his vacation and all that money he spent.

He was just so angry and most of us would have been like,

Whoo-hoo this is awesome.

I'm staying in this gorgeous hotel.

Everything's wonderful.

And she described how most of the guests there had so many expectations that things had to be perfect.

And if one thing was off they would get very upset with the management and it would in many ways ruin their trips.

So how do we do this?

How do we keep our expectations low so that our lives go well?

It isn't that we don't plan things.

We do.

But we realize life has a lot of bumps in it or what we would feel as bumps.

And we would just flow with them.

It's more like riding a waves up and down.

And we laugh when we're going up and we laugh when we're going down.

You see our minds are very tricky.

We need to keep an eye on them because our expectations that our egos get involved in creating and cause us a lot of suffering.

But when we realize it's our expectations,

It isn't life that's suffering.

Life goes so much better.

Let me conclude with how this can really play itself out in our lives.

Because expectations can really have a lot of impact on our lives if we're not careful.

And when we are careful then we're gonna lose the negative impacts that expectation can have.

And we're gonna save our life so much better because whatever life brings us we're gonna be wow this is great.

So let me end with how this practically plays a role in our lives.

What's tricky about expectations is life changes and it doesn't follow our expectations.

So when we have them it can get us in trouble.

So the way to deal with that is is keep them to a minimal.

It doesn't mean that we're not gonna plan our lives out.

We are.

We're gonna do things throughout the day of course.

But we're gonna keep our expectations that they have to go a certain way to a minimal.

So that when they don't we're okay.

And when they do go away that wow that was nice.

We really savor it.

So in the small ways of life let's say we're driving to go see a friend and it's 20 minutes away.

We know there's potentially going to be traffic.

And when there's traffic that 20-minute drive could be an hour drive.

Or when we get there our friend may not be ready.

Or after we get there what we expected to do we don't do because plans change.

Because what life does periodically and sometimes often is that it changes.

And we can adjust well to those changes when our expectations are low.

That we are going through life but we're flowing with life.

We're not expecting life to have to go a certain way.

And this is super helpful with the big changes of life.

Let's again say we weren't expecting in our midlife to go through a divorce.

It happens.

It happens to lots of people.

About half actually here in the US.

So if we expect to die in the arms of our partner together at the exact same time when we're at 80s or 90s we may experience some tough suffering when that doesn't happen.

Because it probably won't.

But if we are just thankful for who life brings us and what life brings us each and every day.

And realizing it's a gift.

It's not a guarantee.

Then we start to really embrace life and say thank you.

You know how many times a day I say thank you?

Because I'm so thankful for what life gives me.

And I know in a heartbeat it could be taken away.

But then it will give me other things.

Other things that I wasn't expecting.

And I'll be thankful for them.

And that's the real secret.

Realizing that life doesn't necessarily guarantee us anything.

We may have expectations but we're gonna keep them at a minimal.

So that when life brings us something that we're not used to.

We didn't see that coming.

We say okay how can I make this work?

And you know what?

We can make anything work.

Anything.

The reason we suffer isn't because of what life is bringing us.

The reason we're suffering because all the expectations and stories that are created around these expectations in our head.

Find the beauty in life.

It's always there.

Find the joys,

The wonders of life.

They're everywhere around us.

And when things change say what's next?

What new adventure are you gonna bring me life?

Because I'm gonna make that work.

Because anything can work.

Ultimately in the long run if we don't give up.

If we don't lose hope.

If we look for the rainbow after the rain comes.

We can always find something beautiful to be with.

And if we're finding that our expectations are getting us in trouble.

Causing us to suffer.

Maybe it's time to finally let them go and say well life that isn't what I expected.

But I'm so grateful for the things that you are bringing me today.

And I'm gonna put my energy and my focus towards them.

Because life I know if I keep my expectations low can truly be a beautiful adventure.

One day at a time.

One breath at a time.

Thank you for joining me on the happiness podcast.

Until next time,

Accept what is,

Love what is.

Reviews

‘Accept what is, love what is’ and keeping your expectations flexible and low. Advice that is rewarding! Namaste 🤓🙏🏻

Another 5 star teaching on a subject I am constantly trying to understand- desire.

Great reminder! It is truly the best mindset to have. That & gratitude. Thank you for sharing this. I will bookmark it to revisit. Namaste.💫✨💞🙏🏼

Lovely talk. I definitely took away some new insights and was reminded of some I have not been practicing. Many blessings & thanks Robert!

Thank you 🙏