Expectations

Some of the most haunting poems are based on unmet and crashed expectations. It’s always too easy to expect. The heart easily falls for the trap set by expectations. Even if the mind raises protest against the heart’s expectations, how many listen and heed the mind?

Part of being human is to expect and to hope. Are the two—hope and expectation—the same? When one hopes, one actually wishes and desires for something, but when one expects, one assumes that something will happen.

Some people hope to find their true love; others expect second dates that will not happen. Others hope to catch the fancy of someone special; some expect for a call that will never come.
It is not only in matters of the heart where there are often unmet expectations. Life is actually full of expectations. Some of them are reasonable; others are doomed to fail from the start. The more one expects, the harder it is to recover should the expectation stay unmet. Why look for such heartaches?

Is it possible to go through life without expectations? To meet someone and see where it goes without expecting a promise, a commitment, a ring in the end? To start something without undue expectations? To go somewhere and enjoy the moments that matter without having to check listed expectations? Is it possible to be in a moment and just be without expecting it to last any longer than it should?

It is possible. Life is simpler, better without undue expectations. Love is sweeter without all the uncalled-for pressure. Let us learn to just be. Here. Now.