For many years, I was misinterpreting the simple concept of desire versus expectation which I’ve now realized that was a main reason of my impatience and agitation in my life. As a Sagittarian, I am an aimer, so I know what I desire and make an effort to achieve it at any price. However, as life is full of surprises, regardless of how focus and expert I am in my aiming skills, the target could move, hide or get vanished right in front of my eyes so I am left as a failed, disappointed, rejected seeker blaming myself as what could I’ve done wrong! Life has taught me lesson by lesson that although the outcome has not been desirable, it does not mean the whole process of aiming was at fault or the experience itself was a complete waste! It took me almost my entire 40 years of life to recognize that if I would replace the word of expectation with desire and accept the outcome regardless of its feasibility, success, or failure, then I will be able to manage my reactions more maturely towards those results.
When we have expectations in life, we usually want to control. We want to possess. Obviously, when those expectations are not met, or do not go the way we hoped, we feel that we have lost the power so we will end up feeling disappointed, discouraged, rejected and most of the time starting to doubt ourselves and our self-worth. However, if we understand that we are not here to control every aspects of our lives and learn to appreciate and accept the outcome regardless of its desirability, then we are more at peace with ourselves, with our relationships with others, and with our situation overall. In other words, once you are honest and confident with your intentions, options, choices, and your efforts, then you surrender yourself instead of being a slave to the result. Please do not confuse the word of surrender with a phrase to settle for less! I simply mean make your intentions virtuous, know what you exactly desire, communicate it honestly and openly and make your best attempts to achieve it and have a faith that you deserve the best and nothing less, then surrender to whatever is the end result as whatever happens is meant to happen. It may not mean to last forever, it may not mean to be easy, it may not mean to be pleasurable, but it meant to happen to teach you a lesson.
In the beauty of truth, I wish you all my virtual and real friends a new year full of health, wealth, laughter, prosperity, and introspection to believe in yourself and your situations and regardless of all challenges and hardships that we’re all going through, believe that if “I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” — Jimmy Dean