Don’t Let Theft Happen Twice
The danger of expectations.
Yesterday my bike helmet was stolen. I left it on my bike while I went swimming. I should have taken it with me like I usually do. But I didn’t. And someone decided to take it for themselves.
I really liked that helmet because it matched my bike, and has a more casual style than the typical bike helmet. More in line with the army theme of my bike. But when I got this one it was the last in stock. I didn’t have much hope of finding such a perfect helmet again.
Today I went to REI. I scanned the shelves and found very different helmets. Again I felt bad because the attachment to the stolen helmet.
Then I found one that was the exact match! Same size, same color. Again it was the last in stock. Both trips there was only 1 helmet for me. The perfect helmet. This time the helmet was even on sale which made the sting of losing the first one less so. It actually turned this theft into a gift.
This experience reminded me of two important topics about mindsets:
- It’s human nature to expect the worst. But what actually happens usually isn’t that.
The anticipated pain is more than the real pain. I expected to not find a similar helmet and have to pay more. Both of these thoughts were wrong. I found the same helmet and paid less. The way to transform this standard, outdated evolutionary mindset is to replace worst-case with best-case, through steady and balanced practice.
What if life happens even better than you can imagine?
2. If I had let the theft get to me and actually believed my thoughts, that I wouldn’t find another helmet just like it, then I would have been stolen from twice.
This is what expectations do. Expectations steal from what is real.
When you judge someone you are stealing the joy that you could have without this judgment.
When someone doesn’t meet your expectations, your expectations are stealing the joy you could have by accepting the person for who and what they are.
It’s not good intentions that pave the path to hell. The path to hell is paved with expectations.
Perhaps you’ve noticed these two topics are related. Our minds are programmed to expect the worst and it usually turns out better. Our joy is stolen by expectations not once but twice from the same situation!
Expectations set us up to fail, and cause us to fail to accept.
So why not just drop expectations altogether?
It’s good to have hopes, dreams, wants, goals, intentions, and even, dare I say, desires. Because these do not assume attachment. It’s possible to desire something without suffering if it doesn’t happen.
Expectations, however, assume attachment.
A father tells his son “I expect you to be home by midnight.”
This assumes that should the son be home later than midnight then there will be some kind of punishment. There is a cause and an effect inherent within each expectation. This is the attachment to an outcome. And attachment will always lead to suffering.
Don’t let yourself be stolen from twice by creating and holding on to expectations. By dropping the attachment inherent within expectations you can drop suffering.
