Today I’m going to suggest a
small change in mindset that could change your life.
I
won’t keep you in suspense. Here it is: think of nothing that
happens as either good or bad. Stop judging, and stop expecting.
It’s
a tiny change — all you have to do is say, ‘That wasn’t good or
bad, it just happened, it just is.’ It’s tiny, but it takes
practice, and amazingly, it can knock you on your ass.
Why?
Because with this little change, you will no longer be swayed up and
down depending on whether good things or bad things happen to you,
whether people (and their actions) are good or bad. You will learn to
accept things as they are, and move within that landscape mindfully.
You
will no longer expect good things to happen (or bad things), but will
just take things as they come, and be content with whatever comes.
This means you’ll no longer be disappointed, or unhappy.
“When
people see some things as beautiful,
other
things become ugly.
When
people see some things as good,
other
things become bad.”
~Lao
Tzu
A
Little Exercise
Think
of something good that happened to you recently, and how it affected
your mindset. Now think of something bad that happened, and what that
did to your mindset.
Now
imagine that neither event was good, and neither was bad. They simply
happened, existed.
How
does that change how you would have felt as a result of those events?
How does it change your happiness, your mood? How does it change what
you do in reaction?
When
you stop judging things as good or bad, you are no longer
Nothing
is good or bad
Hamlet
said, ‘There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it
so.’
He
was right. Without the human mind, things just happen, and they are
not good or bad. It’s only when we apply the filter of our judgment
that they become good or bad, beautiful or ugly.
A
weed is only a weed when we don’t like it. Children are only
naughty if we don’t like their actions. Life only sucks if you
judge it as bad.
But
what about truly horrible tragedies, like a plague or tsunami or the
Holocaust? Surely those are bad? Sure, through the lens of the
judgment we’ve been raised to make, they are terrible. But then
again, remove the judgment, and then … they simply happened. Death
and cruelty will probably always make us sad, but they’ve always
happened and always will, whether we like them or hate them.
Holocaust
survivor and author Victor Frankl wrote of a rich woman who went
through the Holocaust, and who was grateful for the experience, as
much as she suffered, because it opened her eyes. It transformed her.
I’m not saying the Holocaust was good, but perhaps we can say that
it happened. It serves as a lesson — one we should heed, by the
way, in these days of politically charged hatred, of blaming our ills
on immigrants and minorities.
There
are other tragedies that happen that aren’t necessarily bad.
They’re devastating losses, without a doubt, but in life there are
always losses, and people will always die. It’s how we judge them
that determines our reaction, and determines whether we’re capable
of dealing with it sanely.
Great
Expectations
The
second half of this change is just as small, but just as important:
dropping expectations. Not lowering expectations, but eliminating
them.
Think
about it: when we have expectations, and things don’t go the way we
expect (which happens quite often, as we’re not good
prognosticators), we are disappointed, frustrated. It’s our
expectations that force us to judge whether something is good or bad.
When
you expect something of a friend, co-worker, family member, spouse,
and they don’t live up to that expectation, then you are upset with
them, or disappointed. It causes anger. But what if you had no
expectations — then their actions would be neither good nor bad,
just actions. You could accept them without frustration, anger,
sadness.
What
if you went on vacation, to a place you had high expectations of, and
it wasn’t what you thought it’d be? You’d be bitterly
disappointed, even though it’s not the fault of that place —
that’s just how the place is. It’s your expectations that are at
fault.
When
people disappoint you, it’s not their fault. They’re just being
who they are. Your expectations are at fault.
The
Why
But
why make this change? Why should we stop judging? Why should we stop
expecting?
Because
judgments stop us from understanding, and can ruin our happiness.
When we judge, we don’t seek to understand — we’ve already come
to a conclusion. If we stop judging, we allow ourselves to try to
understand, and then we can take a much smarter course of action,
because we’re better informed by our understanding.
Judging
makes us unhappy. So do expectations.
When
we leave judgment behind, we can live in the moment, taking what
comes as neither good or bad, but simply what is. We can stop ruining
our happiness with our thinking, and start living instead.
The
How
So
how do we start doing this? In small steps, as always.
1
First, start by being more aware. Throughout the course of the day
today, note when you make judgments, note when you have expectations,
and when things don’t live up to them. Over time, you’ll notice
this more and more, and be much more conscious of these types of
thoughts.
2
Next, pause each time you notice a judgment or expectation. Take a
breath. Then tell yourself, “No expectations, no good or bad.”
Repeat this, letting go of the judgment or expectation.
3
Third, seek to see things as they are, and to understand. Be curious
as to why things are the way they are, why people act the way they
act. Investigate, empathize, try to put yourself in people’s shoes.
See the landscape of your life as it actually is, without the filter
of judgments or expectations.
4
Next, take what comes. Experience it, in the moment. React
appropriately, without overreacting because it isn’t as you hoped
or wanted. You can’t
control
life, or others, but you can control how you react.
5
Then, accept. When things happen, understand why they do, without
judgment, and accept them as they are. Accept people for who they
are. Accept yourself, without judgment, as you are. This takes
practice.
6
Finally, know that the present moment, being as it is, also contains
infinite possibilities. And those possibilities are opened up once
you see things as they are, without judgment or expectations.
—
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