The Art of Letting Go

While it is wonderful and necessary to have goals, dreams, hopes, and ambitions, it is a mental and emotional mistake to have expectations. Desire as much as you like. Plan as carefully as you like. Try as hard as you like. But expect nothing. If you expect nothing, you have a shot at centering. Use Incantation 2, “I expect nothing,” to help you remember this vital detachment key.

Both reasonable expectations and unreasonable expectations uncenter us and bring us pain. Consider how unreasonable expectations affect us. If your mate was unhappy with you yesterday about your life choice to become an actor and is unhappy with you today about that choice, it is unreasonable to expect that he will be happy tomorrow. It is unreasonable to expect that he will be happy to hear that you did well at an audition or that you landed a coveted role in a play. It will only bring you pain to hope that he can share in your joy when you already know that he is unhappy with your choice, the direction of your life, and the way that you are defying him by pursuing your goals.

You could have a chat with him, on the off chance that in that chat something important might get aired and something might change in his mind and heart. You could ignore him, you could leave him, you could reason with him, you could invite someone else to try to change his mind, and so on. But what it could not possibly pay you to do is to expect him to wake up one morning happy that you are an actor. To harbor that expectation is almost certain to bring you pain. You can’t control how he feels and wishing that you somehow could is unreasonable and uncentering.

It is an unreasonable expectation to expect him to change. But what about reasonable expectations?  Isn’t it reasonable, for instance, to expect that it will be sunny on your beach vacation to a part of the world where the sun shines 340 days a year?  Of course you don’t control the weather, but as a statistical matter you should get sunshine. Why not go ahead and expect it, then?  Because the universe does not owe you sun and is not obligated to provide you with sun. It may be reasonable to expect the sun to be shining when you arrive, but by harboring that “reasonable expectation” you are preparing yourself to have a negative emotional reaction to the quite natural event of occasional rain.

There is no one to be angry at and nothing to be sad about if you arrive and it is raining. If you are sad and angry that you are going to spend your measly annual vacation in the rain, that is more anger with the shape of your life and sadness about the shortness of your time off than it is a reaction to the rain. You needed the sun to be shining to justify the way you are living your life. That is what is typically true of our “reasonable expectations,” that we attach to them for ulterior reasons. It is odd but true that we are trying to make secure our self-image by expecting the sun to be shining when we arrive on vacation.

It is better to let go of the idea that we can control anything, because as soon as we let go of our desire to control we become more honest and aware—and also more in control!  By not attaching to even reasonable expectations we begin to force ourselves to live life in a more present way. The person who needed the sun to be shining will be sad the whole time, whereas the person who can be present anywhere, who is at peace with her life choices and who is honorably pursuing her life work, will walk on the beach in the rain and dream up the calculus or War and Peace or just have an excellent time strolling and dreaming.

It is excellent and necessary to hold the intention to be an instrumental human being who makes her own meaning and, at the same time, to expect nothing. There is no paradox here. You decide to write an excellent novel—but you expect nothing. You decide to throw a ton of energy into your new suite of paintings—but you expect nothing. You hope and pray that your new album will capture something of your recent joy and new musical ideas—but you expect nothing. You try your hardest at whatever you do, but you also surrender. Please do not move on until this distinction registers. By “expecting nothing” you are not “giving up.”  Far from it!  You are making a decision to focus on what needs to be done rather than on outcomes.

• Practice Incantation 2 right now. See if you can get its spirit and its meaning.

Though this discussion is necessarily very brief, I hope that you can see why you would want to empty yourself of expectations. There is nothing to control, there is only your life to live according to your understanding of what principles you intend to manifest and what work you intend to attempt.

You do not control your drinking, you honorably opt for moderation or sobriety. You do not control the course of your novel, you honorably work on your novel and both manage its direction and surrender to its logic. You do not control your children, you love them and help them. You do not control your mate, you do not control the flow of traffic as you make your way to work in the morning, you do not control your mother’s stinginess or your father’s temper. You give up the idea that you can control any of this and instead determine to live in the light of your own cherished principles, doing the work that you have decided matters.

You empty yourself of expectations not in order to become a detached monk but in order to live the life you intend to live. Emptying ourselves of expectations is a graceful surrender to the facts of existence and a great release and relief. It brings with it increased desire, increased energy, and increased presence. This is what Incantation 2 can do for you.

• Practice Incantation 2 a few more times. Feel how exhaling “nothing” works. See if you don’t experience it as a tremendous release.

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To learn more, please take a look at Redesign Your Mind and Ten Zen Seconds.

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This post is republished on Medium.

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