My Chica had been doing some summer-holidays baking with a mate of hers (a process, I should point out, that was supervised not by me, but by my wife, who is a legend).
Anyway, I was mooching around the kitchen later that day and I found this cookie pictured up top!
💝😍💞🥰💓
It was unheralded, just lying there on the side and I was blown away.
Really quite overcome with love and gratitude.
She made that for me!
🥹
I went to find the baker, who was busy colouring something in, to express my heart-felt gratitude at such a nice gesture, and got a somewhat confused response:
“Well, what d'you expect? ‘Poopy-pants Dad,’ or something?!”
😂
I had to pause, because of course while I didn’t expect that (although, to be fair, it’s definitely within the realms of possibility that it could have been decorated with ‘Poopy-pants Dad’, depending on what frame of mind the baker was in, while baking), I realised something else.
When she asked me that question, outright:
“Well, what d'you expect?”
…I realised, with genuine surprise, that I expect nothing.
I don't take any of this stuff for granted.
If she’s loving, she’s loving. If she’s grumpy, she’s grumpy. If she’s irrationally hacked off with me for something I didn’t even say, two weeks ago, she’s… well, you get the picture.
And this has the immense benefit of making the little things so much more special.
😍
It goes to the heart of the Buddhist teachings, doesn’t it, about desire and expectation being the root of all suffering.
Now, I’m not a practicing anything, but I looked up some quotes for you - here’s a good one:
“Peace begins when expectation ends.”
And another:
“Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.”
And like you (maybe) I’ve seen tons of quotes like that and in the past I think my mind has probably interpreted it as a doing:
📦🗣️: “Ok, so you’re saying I have to stop expecting stuff, and everything will be peaceful? Awesome. Sign me up. So what do I do, now?”
But here’s the deal. The reason why I was genuinely surprised, was because in that moment I just realised that I already had no expectations around this. It wasn’t a doing at all.
➤ It’s like no-expectations (and consequently, gratitude) is no effort at all.
➤ And expectations (and consequently, suffering) is actually the doing.
Simplicity manifest!
Since we’re talking Buddhist-type quotes today, let’s finish with this lovely little story I also came across (which I think is completely fictional, but nonetheless hammers home quite nicely the freedom that comes from subtraction of the unnecessary/the untrue):
A man asked the Buddha:
“I want happiness.”
The Buddha replied:
“First remove ‘I,’ for that is Ego.
Then remove ‘want,’ for that is Desire.
See? Now you are left with only happiness.”
Enjoy your weekend.
💟
Giles
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Giles P Croft
What happens when you do have a bunch of expectations