“Now you can enjoy and honor the things of this world without giving them any importance or significance they don’t have. You can participate in the dance of creation and be active without attachment to outcome and without placing unreasonable demands on the world: Fulfill me, make me happy, make me safe, tell me who I am. The world cannot give you those things, and when you no longer have such expectations, all self-created suffering comes to an end.”
Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth (226)
Monday night, during class, I realized how very often I attach expectation to things and situations. After graduation, I would have this, do that. A person who loves me would have this, do that. A good person would have this, do that.
It’s all very exhausting, really, and ultimately disappointing.
I realized that who someone or something from my perspective, is all about my perspective. I notice a pattern and assign names to qualities. I either like or dislike these qualities. Knowing very little about a person, I then fill in the gaps between them. And then, when they don’t act as if they have those qualities, I find myself hurt. Because who, having those qualities, would act in a non-quality way?
Yes, a rather major light bulb went off. I realized that I was practically living completely through people and situations. How could I possibly have time to learn to be myself when I was too busy constructing and condemning everything around me?
So Monday night, I decided to actively let go. And, boy, did two strange things happen.
Lyrical Fool 