Everybody has experienced a big variety of disappointments in their life. Some of smaller, and more banal natures, other in bigger forms. For every possible desire, there is also a possible disappointment.
And for every disappointment that includes the objectification of someone by the person whose expectations are not met, or were given responsibility to for the fulfillment of the expectation by the disappointed, there is also a tendency for resentment.
How the philosophy of YinYang can help.
Like YinYang is teaching us; you always get possibly and potentially something negative in the degree of the positive you get. Met expectations vs. disappointment and perhaps even feelings of resentment.
The higher you fly, the deeper the potential fall. In case you don’t learn to stay up.
The more you feel resentment by unmet expectations that weren’t even communicated and agreed on clearly, the more you not only unfairly judge someone, but also give away your power and control, besides tripping yourself up.
So, depending on our expectations of particular or general outcomes, we are able to get potentially disappointed and even resentful. When we expect a lot, but nearly nothing of our expectations gets fulfilled, the tendency is high to be quite disappointed and perhaps even feel resentful. In some cases on us, not having been able to have acted or reacted differently.
How much you feel disappointment and resentment depends also on the degree of importance and meaning you give the thing and desired outcome.
Two particular ways of decreasing drastically the probability of disappointments and feeling resentful.
- Ceasing to expect.
- Detaching yourself from the fulfillment of the expectation.
Both don’t sound to be very easy perhaps, but it is worth to keep reading.
This topic is not as black and white, as it seems. On one side it is recommended to have certain expectations, on the other hand, expectations contain potential disappointments.
Disappointments are part of life one can directly come up with, and that is right. But it is possible to reduce the amount of self-created expectations, and therefore also self-created disappointments.
“Detachment is the beginning of mastery.“
Sri Aurobindo
How to rather be in a good mood.
By checking our expectations more clearly on their likelihood of fulfillment and if they were or are clearly communicated to the persons who are able to fulfill your expectations or not or if they are willing or able to, you can determine potential pitfalls for self-created disappointments and feelings of resentment.
Knowing how to ask for what you want is another crucial skill.
But let’s stay with our role within the correlation between expectations and disappointments.
Who is able to control one’s expectations, has the majority of his potential disappointments under control.
Who is able to detach from the outcome of his expectations is liberated from the potential disappointment and is still able to expect.
This is the powerful difference between ceasing to expect and detaching from the fulfillment.
In a certain sense, it is becoming lazy. Expecting intensively and or worrying about a particular thing or outcome can cost a lot of energy. Besides time. By detaching your satisfaction and overall well-being from the fulfillment of the desired outcome or thing or person, you rid yourself from paying the costs of worrying and tightening up too much.
Detaching yourself from the fulfillment of the object of desire, be it an outcome, a thing or person, you also gain a shot of relaxedness and with this usually more confidence, positivity, and better overall performance.
By detaching yourself from the fulfillment of a particular outcome or thing or person, you acknowledge that this thing or person usually has the freedom of choosing his or her actions, if it’s not work-related and agreed upon in a contract.
It is the acknowledgment that the most beautiful things are free.
This attitude can help after disappointments have occurred and can prevent one from future possible self-created disappointments.
And by this preventing the easier upcoming of feelings of resentment.
By expecting the fulfillment but with the detachment of the fulfillment, you cut the rope that bound your happiness and emotional well-being to the thing you detached yourself from.
You are freer to go for the thing because your independence from its fulfillment lets you perform in most cases much better.
Detachment, therefore, isn’t resenting it, but freeing your state of being from its fulfillment.
You can start to do this too, by starting with smaller things you desire, and befriending the idea that if it’s not going to fulfill, you are still able to feel good.
The differences between having a good feeling in general or in something particular and expecting the desired result is simply the fact that you have indeed a good feeling when thinking of the chances of your desired outcome.
A simple expectation is mostly just mental. A good feeling is a recognizable good feeling.
The smart and wise way is to practice the cultivation of maintaining a positive and expecting mindset while having clearly and consciously decided that a disappointment isn’t Armageddon and holds very likely something positive in it.
For interpersonal expectations:
Reminding oneself that the feeling of being objectified by another person with the fulfillment of certain desires or goals, that you haven’t agreed on or approved, is not a good feeling and in many cases also not fair.
If we want to feel good and be free, we need to grant others to feel good and be free as well.
Undetached expectations not only try to imprison them.
They also imprison or chain ourselves.
Detach yourself from its fulfillment. Cut the rope.
Go for it anyway with the best feelings you can feel.
Be free either way.
“Detachment does not mean non-involvement. You can be deeply involved but not entangled.”
Jaggi Vasudev
“Detachment is not that you should own nothing. But that nothing should own you.”
Ali ibni abi Talib
