The Trap of Expectation

Weekly wisdom to level up your creative life in 3 minutes, for free.

A SHORT STORY

For 2,500 years, Buddhists have cultivated contemplative practices aimed at transforming the human heart.

Last week, I sat with a close friend, a Tibetan monk, who reminded me of the Four Noble Truths—the essence of this transformation. He told me that all life is suffering. Now, that doesn’t mean life is inherently negative. It simply means that things happen. He then explained that suffering arises from ignorance—and that ignorance can be overcome through practice.

He shared a story from the Buddha. One day, as a disciple was preparing to leave, he asked, “What should I continue to reflect on in your absence?”

“Never expect,” the Buddha told him.

My friend, Geshe, elaborated: “With expectation, suffering follows, yes? But many people confuse expectation with hope.”

Hope, he told me, is a good thing. Expectation, however, is the source of unhappiness.

“My expectation should be very low, but my aim and hope should be high.”

Only now am I beginning to grasp the depth of the Four Noble Truths, wisdom I first encountered years ago.

Jack Gilbert, in his poem A Brief for the Defense, perhaps says it best:

"We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world."

Maybe this is the real work—not eliminating suffering, not clinging to expectation, but holding steady in the fire, stubbornly choosing joy.

Where in your life are you mistaking expectation for hope?

A POEM

“A Brief for the Defense” by Jack Gilbert

Sorrow everywhere. Slaughter everywhere. If babies
are not starving someplace, they are starving
somewhere else. With flies in their nostrils.
But we enjoy our lives because that's what God wants.
Otherwise the mornings before summer dawn would not
be made so fine. The Bengal tiger would not
be fashioned so miraculously well. The poor women
at the fountain are laughing together between
the suffering they have known and the awfulness
in their future, smiling and laughing while somebody
in the village is very sick. There is laughter
every day in the terrible streets of Calcutta,
and the women laugh in the cages of Bombay.
If we deny our happiness, resist our satisfaction,
we lessen the importance of their deprivation.
We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure,
but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have
the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless
furnace of this world. To make injustice the only
measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.
If the locomotive of the Lord runs us down,
we should give thanks that the end had magnitude.
We must admit there will be music despite everything.
We stand at the prow again of a small ship
anchored late at night in the tiny port
looking over to the sleeping island: the waterfront
is three shuttered cafés and one naked light burning.
To hear the faint sound of oars in the silence as a rowboat
comes slowly out and then goes back is truly worth
all the years of sorrow that are to come.

Grateful,

Michael