Have you ever noticed that sometimes, when you are least expecting it, life sends you a complete surprise that brings joy? Maybe sometimes it is a big surprise, something that makes your whole life better. Yet, you were not expecting it. In fact, many of us go out of our way NOT to expect good things to happen to us. We reason, irrationally, that by not expecting good things to happen, we will never be disappointed when they don't.
Uh huh. How's that working out for you? Are you the happiest most satisfied person on the face of the planet? I bet not. It turns out that when we go out of our way to avoid expecting good things to happen, we tend not to notice the wonderful small things that happen around us every day. In fact, we are so focused on not being disappointed at our lives or ourselves or our children or spouses that we all but forget to experience the joys that come, probably more often, than the dreaded disappointments.
It stands to reason that if we focus on the middle ground -- that which cannot disappoint but will rarely excite -- we will rarely experience life's happy little (and sometimes big) surprises because our brain will simply skip over them.
As this is major league baseball playoff season, think of it this way: if you are focused on only a curve ball while standing in the batter's box, the odds are pretty good that you will stand there looking at a fast ball down the middle of the plate. It is not what you were looking for and you just missed your best chance for an RBI.
If you are standing in life's batter's box always expecting to be disappointed and always trying to avoid that disappointment, guess which of life's pitches you will miss? You got it -- the ones down the middle of the plate that bring us joy and happiness. Sometimes life will even have to bean us with a ball before we wake up and realize that some pretty darn good things are happening.
Consider this alternative and more productive strategy as you stand in at bat: what if you always expected something good might happen? What if you were always looking for small and big surprises, joys and gifts? What if rather than making assumptions about what the rest of your life was bound to be like you instead simply enjoyed it as it came to you? Guess that would happen. You would experience more pleasant surprises and more joys and many less, or at least less deeply felt, disappointments. This is not because more good things are coming your way if you live in Pollyanna la la land, but because you are more aware and more open to seeing them and experiencing them. When you start looking and expecting good things to happen to you, watch out because all of a sudden, good things do.
Of course you will still experience bad things, but when you do, you will be better able to cope because you are expecting that the next thing to happen will be a good thing. For a relatively small mind shift that works so well, it's amazing at how difficult it appears to be for most of us and how few of us are able to maintain a "look for the good" mindset day after day. Our brains are just wired to pay a lot more attention to the bad stuff because, at least sometimes, if can kill us. But, who wants to merely survive always expecting the next shoe to drop or the next relationship to fail? Thriving requires us to put forth conscious effort to overcome our natural inclination to more heavily weight the bad...but the upsides are tremendous.
Try it yourself at home. Maybe pick an afternoon where you purposely decide to expect good things to happen to you. You might be surprised. The more you practice this skill the better you get at it. Before long, you can be expecting good things to happen more often than bad and finding a life that is much more balanced on the bright side.
All you have to lose is your fear of disappointment.
