Have you ever heard someone say, "If you expect nothing, you will never be disappointed?"  I did long ago and funny enough I was reflecting on it and realized as a child I had already been taught this, I just didn't fully realize it. 

My parents were young when they started a family. My father was in the Navy when I was born and my mother and I lived with her parents.  When my father got out of the Navy we moved to Michigan and started our lives there. Growing up, my mother who always had a spiritual take on things was just trying to be a good wife and mother, while our father was abusive, mean and neglectful.  They would fight all the time about how we were being raised and just their own general stuff.  What they didn't realize that during that time, they were not giving us expectations, other than what kind of relationships we didn't want, for our futures.  Even when I wanted to go to art school after getting a scholarship, my father would not pay for the plane out to Seattle Washington. They never talked about or prepared us for college. They never spoke of anything really about what we would do for careers other than when we would talk about what we would want, their response was more like the feeling of "Good Luck with that," instead of, "If that is what you want to do or be that is great!"  Now my mother supported me when I wanted to be in band and orchestra. When I wanted to be in plays in school and well what seemed just a part of being a part of going to school, but afterwards, there was never really any talk about it or expectations. 

When I think on the word expectation, I believe it is the same as what spirit says about Hope.  Hope is great, but we what we should think about it that hope allows for failure.  Expectation gets our hopes up and when they don't manifest, we feel let down. "What did I do wrong?  Why didn't it turn out the way I wanted? Now what am I going to do?"  Well there is your problem. You left that entirely up to chance. Chance that it will or won't happen. 

When I didn't leave things that I wanted to happen up to expecting it to turn out, I learned it was up to me to make those things happen.  I didn't expect or hold expectations above who I am as a person. Instead I learned that if you want something to happen, it is up to you to create it. I don't expect people around me to do anything they don't want to do. I don't expect people to attend everything I put before them is there because I am offering it, but I am not spoon feeding nor making you take it. I don't expect people to be happy with my decisions about how and when I will do my work.  If your expecting things from me to do for you and you are disappointed, that has nothing to do with me, but everything to do with you.  Expectations are a poor substitute for creating what you really want.  Because like Hope, Expectation allows for failure. 

Everything I have ever wanted in my life, I have fully created it the way it should be for my highest good.  I am here on this planet as a part of service to it, but also service involves serving the self as well. Not selfishly, but fully.  If you are struggling, because something isn't happening your way, you are not fully using what spirituality teaches which is being responsible.  Expectation is not being responsible for the things in your life. If it doesn't turn out the way you want, you may feel a variety of negative feelings and thoughts come in and if you didn't have expectations in the first place, none of those feelings and thoughts are given a chance to exist.  You are in control.  You are being a Co-Creator, not just a creation.

Now some people will say but you should have expectations, but why?  This is a learned behavior and really isn't a power as fully as it should be.  If I know, that is different and much more powerful than I expect.  Actively participating in what I KNOW will be is better than I HOPE it will happen. Hope is for those who are sheepishly living their lives the way others expect them to live it. But being a person of knowing and creating, your living your life the way you want, not expect.  

We can choose many paths to get to where we want to be or what we want to know.  We can choose the most important thing in life we should know of and that we can and have the power to not sit around and wait for things to happen, but to fully and purposefully make them happen.  If you choose to direct your own play and be the character you want, in this world filled with so many different stories, don't expect your story to go a certain way.  Just create it already and you will be happier than you will ever know.

Have a great May,

Steven