happiness Archives - Blowing It

Gratitude with an Asterisks, Most of Us Are Doing It All Wrong.

There is an oversight to gratitude that we often go without seeing and that is our living contradictions to that of which we are grateful for. If you say I’m grateful for water, it’s a nourishment to life, it keeps me alive and well hydrated it makes the world a beautiful place. And then in turn you curse the rain for ruining your day or getting your hair wet. Then that becomes an immediate a contradiction to your gratitude. There are so many examples of this; thankful for the sun, it helps all the plants grow and the plants in turn feed us and contribute to earth’s beauty but then you complain about the heat or the over growth of trees in your yard, it conflicts with what you might say you’re grateful for.

Maybe you say to yourself that you’re grateful for your spouse, but than in turn, certain things about them you just can’t stand, that’s another conflict of interest. You are not thankful for them as a whole. You might be grateful for income but loath people who have even greater wealth than you. With that, you are directly going against the gratitude tide and it will hurt you especially if you want to get ahead yourself.

Differences In Gratitude.

Yes these are generalizations of a broad spectrum but that’s just the thing gratitude and disdain don’t live in the same realm. You’re either grateful for the entire array, or not. You may try to break it down to just it’s parts. But when it’s just the parts, you understand, you are not expressing true gratitude, gratitude as a whole. And that is where we shoot ourselves in the foot.

Picking and choosing some of what make things special to us is a losing battle. One that can eventually overwhelm your gratitude. Does this sound better I’m thankful for my spouse’s humor and affection but all the rest not so much? How long could that possibly last? What happens when they are not being funny or affectionate? That’s what we do when we break it down to the sum of its parts, we’re not truly grateful. We’re trying to play both sides of the coin and eventually it’s going to land on just one side. Be thankful for all that you have and all that comes with it.

How I Practice Gratitude.

Thank you to the creators of all things and the energy in everything. Thank you for the sun and the trees for the water and the air I breathe. Thank you for all that I have and all that I’ll receive. Then go on to list all the immediate things you are grateful in your life currently. This is a great way to start every morning. Gratitude is powerful.

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Happiness Comes When Expectations Are Met Or Exceeded.

Every fight, every break up, every blow out, depression, unhappiness, anger sadness, frustration, everything. All negative emotions can be tied back to that simple equation. Were the expectations you placed met or exceeded? If not, chances are one of the aforementioned emotions befell upon you. And in your frustration, those around you may have payed the price.

We so often don’t see it but we nearly always have some form of expectation placed on any given situation. Child didn’t clean their room like you asked, so yell at them. Spouse didn’t take out the trash or didn’t make dinner. Anger and resentment well up. Now you’re upset with them and the more times they miss the mark on those expectations that you placed upon them the bigger the wedge is driven between you. One of the most sure fire ways to breed resentment is to place expectations on another and if you want to add an intensifier put a timeline on it. If a spouse or significant other leaves you, it’s because the expectations they had for your relationship have not been met.

Where Are Your Expectations Set?

Maybe you even set your own bar too high to begin with, and you’re scrambling to keep up. Which in turn makes you unhappy because you aren’t living up to your own expectations you set upon yourself. Many successful people are often times some of the most unhappy people because their expectation for themselves and their businesses are set so high that if they miss the mark they are a failure in their eyes. Or if they hit the mark they still feel they could have done better. Which there is absolutely nothing wrong with being driven and having high expectations. Just always keep this fact in mind, it could be leading you down a path of pain and misery. Either learn to enjoy the suffering. Or change your ways

Expectations of mountain peaks — Expectations Of Mountain Peaks
Photo by Samuel Ferrara on Unsplash

If you do have expectations for someone else, high or low, make sure you preset those notions with them, so they can make sure they either attempt live up to them or they can depart from them entirely. Or make sure you have a plan in place in case you don’t meet others expectations. Your financial expectations might be different, your time spent together expectations could wildly out of balance. Your family expectations could not match up. Make sure you communicate these desires. Happiness is simply expectations met or exceeded.

Expecting Too Much From Others.

We all have friends or family who are never on time, always late or they just outright flake on their plans altogether. And we all have the same negative reactions towards them. Let down, upset and sometimes angered. We expect people to follow through on their word. But what if we knew some of our people were that way and we began to expect their excentricities. Those quirks, although rude would never catch us off guard or make us mad again. They would simply be meeting expectations and if they were there and on time they would be exceeding them.

Pain from a death comes from the expectation that person would be alive tomorrow. Yes you will miss them but missing anyone or anything is you expecting to see that something or someone more than you currently are. Losing what you expected to have, love, long life, family, health, friendship. Losing all or any of that can be incredibly painful if it goes away. All parents expect to have happy healthy children and when that expectation doesn’t happen it can have devastating effects on you and your family.

Lessons Learned.

However if you know that all these things are very much possibilities that can happen in life and you begin to accept and expect that. It will drastically soften the blow if anything does go awry. All in all, if you want to be happier, lower your expectations. Once you have those lower expectations, you can than go out and exceed them.

Tag: happiness

Contradictory Gratitude #204.