Keeping it Simple

The holidays have arrived and with them the hopes and dreams of millions of men, women and children. There is opportunity for making memories and unearthing them, a prospect that can be full of wonder and sometimes worry. Whether your holidays or life in general are filled with joy or drama depends on the formulas we use to calculate these outcomes.

Drama is a state of confusion brought about by the calculating complexities of expectations. There are two equations for creating drama: 1) I am the result of your expectations and 2) you and everything else are the result of my expectations. The latter gives the appearance that we can know one another and how this world ticks. However, all we know through this formula is the cumulative experience of met or unmet expectations. We cannot know ourselves at all via the first calculation, but it is by living up to and abiding by expectations that we are conditioned, and learn to live in this world as children.

Expectations are desires that constitute the veil that keeps the world appearance and all drama in place. If someone is disappointed or hurt or angered, this suffering can always be traced to one’s expectations of some person or circumstances. Whether someone should or should not have expected something they or someone else did or didn’t do, say, feel, is the equation that is sure to produce some level of drama as it validates and initiates the expected reactions. In recognition of this fact, one may attempt to alter expectations and expect only the best from everyone. But everyone may not agree.

It is not the expectation, but the fulfillment of it or the lack thereof that brings about drama. So it is better to have no expectations at all. When this is the only expectation that can be disappointed or fulfilled, the responsibility for our physical, mental, emotional and spiritual condition rests squarely on our own shoulders and though it may not be comfortable to find ourselves raising expectations, it is a load we can bare or let go as we choose.

‘Tis a gift to be simple. Put another way -- want not, waste not…. a single moment of your precious life. Happy Holidays!