Expectation is Killer of Happiness

Expectation is when we want things to happen our way. That’s when we start expecting things. As human beings, we are terrible at predicting the future, most of the time, things don’t happen the way we think they will. It’s very important to understand that we shouldn’t expect too much from life.

It’s very easy to say, but most of the time, we expect things whether it’s getting good exam results, getting selected for a job, or finding a good partner. We always expect something from life, and that’s just human instinct. So, we can’t completely stop expecting things. But what we have to understand is that while we want something to happen, we should also accept that it may not happen the way we planned. At the end of the day, things unfold based on destiny, and there’s only so much we can control.

The key is acceptance that whatever happens is ultimately for the better, even if we can’t understand it right now. It’s for now and for the future. Like Steve Jobs said, “You can’t connect the dots looking forward, but you can always connect them looking backward.”

So, I think having that understanding and acceptance is important. Even if life isn’t going my way or according to my plans, even if things feel like they’re going in the complete opposite direction, and I feel frustrated, anxious, or hopeless, I need to remind myself that whatever is happening now is leading somewhere. Even if I don’t understand it yet, one day, when I look back, I will realize why things had to happen this way in order for me to reach where I’m meant to be.

It’s like what happens in movies. In any story, when a character feels lost, like nothing is going their way, and they face setbacks and challenges take Spiderman, for example. Peter had to go through the pain of losing Uncle Ben, and that’s what transformed him from a spider boy into Spiderman. The character himself doesn’t understand it in that moment, but as viewers, we can see how crucial that moment was for him to become who he was meant to be.

The same applies to our lives. Even if we don’t understand things right now, there will come a time when we will look back and realize how important those moments were in shaping our journey.

We should learn to believe in the process instead of worrying about the outcomes because we can never control the outcome 100% of the time but we can control what we choose to focus on and what actions we take each day.