how setting expectations on life limits our dreams?
We want to see the gorgeous, we want to see the pretty. We want to live life the way they do in the movies, careless and with a general feeling of freedom.
Well, don’t we forget that for movies to actually do good they need to have a plot?
If a movie would show only the pretty moments without the hardship and the despair it wouldn’t be a great movie, let’s admit it.
Even after the emotional rollercoaster portrayed in Hollywood movies still miss a lot of realness. They miss the moments in which a person is just existing.
The days in which there are not a million problems going on, or the regular times in which we are just being.
Movies are made to touch our emotions, they play with the significant and important moments of life.
They are highlights, and we know that.
It can be hard for us to understand that though. Everyone wants their fairytale romance (including me).
We see all of these things and we want our life to be exactly like it or if not very similar. This takes us to expect in life what we see in movies and even in the lives of people around us.
The life that we have and the life that we have built may not include a hot romantic interest but it certainly does include human qualities. And the best part is that we each get to experience it.
The duality of life
Nature and life have an inherent duality. There are opposites to each thing. Fire warms and it burns. Water is the source of life and it drowns.
We have moments of extreme joy and we also have moments of extreme sadness and anger. It is a balance and one side serves a purpose for the other. Just like a blazing fire on the Earth has helped farmers with the fertility of the soil to grow new life and how humans are capable of creating life in the darkest moments.
From one side comes the other. From our lowest moments, we get our greatest lessons.
I believe that it is important to know that both sides of duality exist at the same time, they are complementing possibilities. It is not the same as looking at the extremes and swinging from one side to another.
The fact that we are dual and we are capable of both doesn’t signify that we have to harshly swing from one side to another.
Let’s apply it to an example:
Just because we are capable of experiencing both the most exciting moments in our lives and the most humbling and destroying ones, it doesn’t mean that these are the only things that exist.
Do not confuse duality with black-and-white thinking
The greyness of life
This is where the colour grey comes in. The grey is that in-between moment. Is the true balance, the middle ground. Most daily experiences that we have consist of grey. And we don’t pay attention to them because they are so ignorable. They seem unimportant and redundant.
But in reality, they are life, not the highlights only, but all of it, even the “dull and boring” moments.
The idea of greyness leaves us with the feeling of being satisfied with life, of seeking contentment instead of happiness.
When we look at the grey we are looking at the most human part of us, although I could argue that the whole thing together is what is the most human.
Expectations in general
When what we want out of life is the drama, the highlight moments and the great experiences, we forget about the rest. And I don’t blame you, who wouldn’t want their whole life to consist of only great moments I don’t think anyone is “healed enough” or emotionally sane enough to only be going through great moments.
Even if they were, we live in a society that isn’t fair, we would have to deal with other people that are triggered by our peace and live events that are totally out of our control.
It can be hard to not desire the things that are presented to us on social media.
At a certain point, we can even get confused about what we want because we are shown so many great things that we don’t know which ideas are ours and which ideas were subtly introduced to us and we don’t really want.
So when we start creating expectations for what our life should be without analysis and with the idea that it solely relies on us a funny thing happens.
It becomes harder to get to our desired outcome. The control that we place on life makes life want to go get a tattoo without her parent’s permission and dye her hair green. What we try to control escapes us.
Just like when our parents were too strict with us which led to a lot of conflicts and a desire to leave.
We tend to confuse expressing desire and intention with setting expectations and deadlines. It is the first thing manifestation gurus (to non-spiritual by-passy ones) say, to let go and surrender our desires.
That way magnetism is created and we attract the things that not only we desire but which are probably meant for us, and if not even something better.
Why is setting expectations for life-limiting?
Not only setting expectations in life is asserting control over it. But it is also very limiting. Imagine how many great things you will miss in life when you set a path that you are not even sure about instead of completely opening up to all of the possibilities. There is so much life in that possibility. Being confused and not knowing about your future can be very hard, icky and stressful.
Sitting in the discomfort of that possibility and that openness is part of it. Giving it space to brew and grow without trying to control it leads to bright outcomes. Of course, let’s not get confused with indecisiveness and avoiding decision-making when a decision is imminent.
That is different, when a decision is calling to us, it is calling and it has to be made, of course not making a decision is always a decision, but it will leave you right where you are.
You can always choose to stay right where you are. But isn’t staying in the same place mentally and in our development journey being afraid of change? There are moments in which we are meant to stay and brew as I said above, but not moving out of fear is different. That would be limiting.
The Mundane
If we allowed ourselves to live simple human moments we would find so much value in them. Not only contentment but also insight into a lot of life questions that have been hanging around with us for a while. Do you see how eye-opening showers are? They are simple and they are very naked but look at how many ideas and songs first popped up in the shower.
The mundane is the greyness is the space of creation as well. We can tap into this space by not living in black and white and by embracing the humanness in us.
Prompts
Let’s take a look at our relationship with control and expectations. The way we apply this to life and to ourselves can define what our life looks like from our perspective.
- What is the next big decision that you have to make and how are you coping with it?
- When you make life-changing decisions do you take your time or are you more impulsive? Why?
- How does your relationship with control lead you to impulsivity / avoiding decision-making?
- Describe the expectations that you have for your life and the expectations others have for your life.
- What feelings arise from this description?
- What are your fears towards letting go of control and surrender?
The last question is the hardest one I believe. If you allow yourself to open up to yourself, you will find many beliefs that are ingrained that you will have to move past to let go of expectations.
[Big sigh] I think we all wish that we had everything figured out. We all wish that life were easy and fulfilling always. We even wish for it to be full of highlights and happiness.
That is not how it works in this universe. What we have observed is that trying to control life and trying to put things in boxes, or trying to label them does not work.
We do this because we want to make sense of our world. But by containing and restraining it we are only limiting it. The feeling most of us want in life is happiness, that feeling is directly tied to freedom. Life wants to be free as well.
