It is simply amazing how much misery one person will endure, how unhappy one person can be, when reality does not conform to their expectations. As the 18th Century English poet Alexander Pope put it "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."
However, no matter how many times we warn against crossing bridges before we come to them, or counting chickens before they are hatched, we as a species are still too busy building high hopes to live for one second in the moment. When our hopes crumble, we crumble with them. Animals don’t have this problem. It is uniquely human. Perhaps this is why it is so often remarked that this is a dog’s life!
There are levels to all of our expectancy, how we expect others to behave, ourselves to react, or events to unfold are largely dictated to us by our social/religious/economic conditioning. We have expectations built into our programming. Our parents teach us that if we behave well, we will be rewarded, and like domestic pets, we train our needs to be rewarded.
Not everyone is conditioned in exactly the same way, yet everyone designs their expectations on what they believe will make them happy – and most people seem to agree that money would make them a lot happier.
How often do you ask yourself: am I happy right now? It is not as if it is an unimportant question. In comparison, how often do you ask yourself the question: will I have enough money tomorrow? Are you really rich (or guaranteed happiness) if the answer to the first question is no, and the answer to the second question is yes?
We all want happiness, so why aren’t we happy? Why do we wait for/expect something external (such as a lottery win) to happen before we allow ourselves to be happy, instead of letting go of the past and the security of the familiar that we know makes us unhappy? It is a paradigm that everyone suffers with; we are at total conflict with ourselves.
Even those who are “stuck”, who don’t look forward to anything, are living in the fantasy realms of their expectations everyday, and without even realising it this is why most take things for granted, including the power of their own free will.
Most people do not expect change. They are in the same job and married to the same person, rear children, buy homes and endure family holidays for years upon years of unquestioning misery. There are thousands upon thousands of people who are discontent with work, or argue with their spouse everyday, and loathe everyday as it unfolds, yet consign them selves to being this way for the rest of their lives. They’ve made their beds…
And we wonder why people have nervous breakdowns, mid-life crisis and heart attacks? Most “content” people are plodding along with only memories of good times and expectations of more to come to keep them happy. How many people are happy within every moment of their lives?
As Alan Watts proposed in The Wisdom of Insecurity “If my awareness of the past and future makes me less aware of the present, I must begin to wonder whether I am actually living in the real world. After all, the future is quite meaningless and unimportant unless, sooner or later, it is going to become the present.”
Of course, not all expectations are detrimental. If an athlete enters a competition and expects to win because of her training, dedication and fitness levels, then only someone with a greater dedication would defeat her. “For, he that expects nothing shall not be disappointed, but he that expects much, if he lives and uses that in hand day by day, shall be full to running over.” Edgar Cayce.
But that takes focus, and “the powers of memories and expectations are such that for most human beings the past and the future are not as real, but more real than the present” Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity.
The future maybe wonderful, it may not. The world could end in 2012, or could continue for another 2012+ years. Does it matter? Should it matter? Do we need to know what is going to happen tomorrow to be happy today?
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