Sometimes things just don’t work out the way we expect or want and we feel disappointed. Perhaps we voted and our nominee didn’t get in. Perhaps some things didn’t work out at home or at work. There’s nothing wrong with disappointment of course, but is there a way of avoiding it — at least sometimes? Benjamin Franklin wrote:

Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed

Hmm, but wait a minute, isn’t it good to expect good things? Isn’t this a mark of optimism, and doesn’t optimism create both increased opportunities and happiness?

Yes, expectation in the sense of general optimism and hopefulness is very helpful. The problem occurs when expectation contains insistence on out exact vision manifesting. When there is demand in our expectation, we become emotionally bound to our expectations coming to pass in the way we want and according to our timeline. That’s what causes us suffering. The following 58 second video shows the gist of what happens: