Letting go seems like such an easy task, but it’s in fact one of the hardest. When you set expectations, they are more than likely to become premeditated disappointments. When you allow yourself to flow with life instead of putting up walls of expectation, it often transforms into lack thereof instead of a lesson to learn.
An expectation is a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future. This can be somewhat problematic, being that we only have control of the current moment. I understand that it may be difficult to get rid of expectations. While you can still have them, just don’t put all of your eggs in one basket. It is important to have the ability to be flexible and move with the currents of life, with its never ending turns, ups, and downs. Allowing yourself to go with flow will save you so much more time and energy in the long run. Your emotional state will become less affected by these swift changes that can more or less blind side us. The disappointment from these expectations don’t have the power they once had over our lives.
With expectations we place on ourselves, our lives, as well as our achievements, how much of these are truly ours or were they placed upon by others? (E.g. family, friends and coworkers). When you step back and see “am I living for myself,” or am “I living for the expectations that are placed upon me?” The picture may become more clear or blurry depending on how deeply we are invested in these constrictive beliefs we have. I’m not saying abandon your life to start anew, most of us have to take it a step at a time. A good example of this is instead of setting goals out of reach, where we feel set up to fail. This would reinforce the narrative that we can not attain our goals and dreams.
Just like when you start learning a new skill or language, you cannot expect to understand or know everything about it on the first day. However, you can set small goals that you can reach in short amounts of time and track the progress. Remember, Rome wasn’t built in a day. Just take it step by step and if you make a mistake, it’s not the end of the world. Everything is just a learning experience to grow from. At the end of the day we are all human, and there is beauty in the journey even if it has some detours. Allow yourself to rest, you can try again later if you do make a mistake or something unexpected happens. Remember that life would be utterly boring without at least some of these detours, which can always give the gift of perspective.
With expectations comes a closed view of what we can do and experience. Allow yourself to let go a little and truly live, I believe in you!
