Why Expectations Sabotage Our Happiness: Moving Beyond What "Should Be"
Unlock your potential future by aligning yourself with Tao's natural rhythm.
I love my Mom, but her view of the world makes me hurt. Mom’s life did not evolve as she wanted it to when she was a child, and when she grew into an adult, people kept throwing monkey wrenches in her life’s gears. Almost nothing happened as she expected it, and that’s a problem.
Her parents didn’t exactly have a caring relationship with their oldest child and only daughter. When Mom was hurt, they didn’t seem to care and would leave her at home to struggle. When Mom was 16, they moved to Dallas, Texas, with little regard for the life she had begun to create. During the abusive years with my father, they told her it wasn’t that bad and to deal with it. Even still, Mom thought, if she fought hard or believed strongly enough, her reward would be a caring husband and financial security in old age. After all, this future was promised to her by her faith and tradition.
Instead, she found another abusive husband and a second divorce, now living in a tiny house in East Texas, alone, nearing 70 years old. I can’t count the number of times Mom told me, “This isn’t how it was supposed to be. I wasn’t supposed to end up alone at this age. I didn’t deserve any of this!” I agree she didn’t deserve any of the hardships given to her. No one does, and I don’t blame her for the anger or outrage. For the last 40 years, I’ve been through the same hardships, and we can’t go back.
However, moving forward, it’s important to realize one key phrase that Mom and everyone else can avoid using is “should be” and “supposed to be.” For example, “This should have never happened,” or “Things are not supposed to be like this.” Expectations about life and our path through it are toxic to our mental health.
When I was 22, my girlfriend of six months broke up with me. With my Dad gone from my life and my Mom battling depression, I tried to find my own answers. A friend told me to wake up every day and state, “Today is going to be a good day!” He said that, if I said the phrase enough, it would come true—a mind over matter situation. However, I discovered that even when I said the phrase for several days in a row, some days weren’t good or happy. Some of the days were bad, and I went to bed miserable. I faced frustrations, unfortunate events, forgetfulness, sadness, anger, and more. So, why didn’t it work? “I must be broken,” I thought. “This world hates me,” I explained to friends. So, are my Mom and I cursed? No.
In both situations, my Mom and I created our own expectations of our future, and when those expectations didn’t occur, we blamed ourselves, everyone, and everything else. Mom faced terrible events, yes, but Tao promises nothing, so nothing should be expected. The Tao is not moral, so good and bad days do not exist—there are only days and nights.
In Chapter 19 of Tao Te Ching, the seminal text of Taoism, Laozi explains that expectations and societal constructs doom us. The translations of Chapter 19 are wildly different from one translator to the next, so I’ll stay close to texts that represent a more direct translation. Also, for the first time, I’ll use my own direct translation.
Let’s get into it.
Gia Fu Feng
Give up sainthood, renounce wisdom
And it will be a hundred times better for everyone.Derek Lin
Discontinue sagacity, abandon knowledge
The people benefit a hundred timesPatrick Stewart
Abandon holiness and wisdom,
People profit a hundred times.
The first stanza immediately breaks our concepts of holiness and wisdom. It may seem counterproductive to read, “Don’t consider anyone holy or wise,” from a guy who wrote a famous book about how to live your life, but it is true. Laozi directs us to abandon the concepts because they do not exist in reality, in nature. The fox is no more wise than the dolphin, and the saint is no more holy than the church-goer. The fox and the dolphin are animals; the priest and the church-goer are human.
Tao is to us as water is to everything. Water does not punish the evil man and reward the good man. Tao is not moral. Therefore, we are told to abandon the institution of holiness and the directive of accumulating knowledge.
Gia Fu Feng
Give up kindness, renounce morality,
And men will rediscover filial piety and love.Derek Lin
Discontinue benevolence, abandon righteousness
The people return to piety and charityPatrick Stewart
Abandon morality and virtue,
People resume family values.
Verse two’s translation is complicated. The simplified Chinese is “絕仁棄義, 民復孝慈” (Jué rén qì yì, mín fù xiào cí). Count the number of characters you see: eight. Notice that the English translations from Gia Fu Feng and Derek Lin contain more than the Chinese eight symbols. Like many languages, Chinese creates new meaning when words are placed next to each other—phrasal verbs. For example, I can say, “Put off,” which means to delay or postpone. It doesn’t literally mean to “put” an item “off” another. So, creating a direct translation while holding true to the meaning is almost impossible.
Taking all three translations together, however, we come to the answer. Laozi directs us to stop assigning labels and values to actions or ideas. One of the results of this directive is a strong family. In fact, filial piety, in Gia-Fu Feng’s version, is a word-for-word translation. I chose to clarify it as family values because in modern times, everyone understands that “family values” means having parents who love and cherish their children and don’t abandon them. Children, in return, respect and love their parents and care for them into old age. These values were just as important to ancient Chinese families as they are to modern families.
This verse also mentions one of the mind-blowing aspects of Taoism: the Tao is not moral because morality isn’t real. This is the most personal and challenging lesson in Taoism.
Actions and beliefs can not be good or bad in a universal sense. While murder is destructive, painful, and against the creation of life, death is the other half of the equation. We can not grow without decay. There is no life without death.
Our existence results from billions of deaths, both man-made and natural occurring, natural disasters, meteors and comets, floods, and hurricanes. There is no other way for you to have reached today than for trillions of actions to have occurred exactly as they did—destructive or creative, painful or painless. Actions and events do not follow human concepts. They are what they are.
When we internalize this idea and allow it to flow outward through our actions, our ties to others become stronger because we no longer judge them, their beliefs, or what they do.
Gia Fu Feng
Give up ingenuity, renounce profit,
And bandits and thieves will disappear.Derek Lin
Discontinue cunning, discard profit
Bandits and thieves no longer existPatrick Stewart
Reject cleverness, abandon profit
Thieves and robbers will not exist.
Verse three is a final example of the intended meaning. If we do not hold anything as valuable, then robbers will have nothing to steal. Thieves only want what people regard as valuable or precious. If nothing is precious, and if we do not claim value for anything, then there is nothing precious for them to steal, and the profession of a robber would stop. Written differently, because we define objects as valuable, other people want to take them.
The definitions and labels we place on people, places, and things separate them when they are not separate. Yes, descriptive language has fantastic benefits for understanding cultural differences, identities, and opinions, but it too often divides us and causes systematic judgments and discrimination. Rather than clinging to self-identifying letters, colors, or traits, instead allow people to be neighbors, friends, and colleagues.
Gia Fu Feng
These three are outward forms alone; they are not sufficient in themselves.
It is more important
To see the simplicity,
To realize one’s true nature,
To cast off selfishness
And temper desire.Derek Lin
These three things are superficial and insufficient
Thus this teaching has its place:
Show plainness, hold simplicity
Reduce selfishness, decrease desiresPatrick Stewart
These three things are ornamentation and insufficient.
Therefore, ensure you have a profound sense of purpose with Tao.
Return to a state of simplicity
Reduce personal agendas and lessen desire.
As Laozi often does, he summarizes his lesson by contradicting himself. The previous three examples are simply that—examples, not the whole. Laozi states we should let go of rules and expectations by lessening our desires. This includes Laozi’s expectations. Instead of forcing our desired outcome on others, allow the result of Tao to be what it is. Modern English has its own version of the final line, “Reduce your expectations.” While you might think the keyword is expectations, the actual keyword is lessen.
Remember, natural emotions and feelings are from Tao, and expecting a future where you no longer have those is not aligned with Laozi’s teaching. However, a future where you freely let those desires come and carefully allow them to flow away from your mind is achievable.
If my Mom realized that life's events aren't divine punishments, she might find the future's possibilities exciting rather than sorrowful. The universe punishes no one. We punish each other. Mom’s life, filled with unmet expectations and painful hardships, reflects the struggle many find when clinging to how things "should be."
By letting go of these constructs, she could embrace the simplicity of existence. The Tao invites us to release the need to label events and people as good or bad, to stop assigning moral weight to life’s natural flow. For Mom, this could mean seeing her tiny house in East Texas not as a symbol of failure, but as a place to exist, breathe, and find peace. By reducing her desires for a specific outcome, she will discover that the future holds possibilities unbound by past disappointments, allowing her to live with less self-imposed suffering and more openness to what is.
For myself, aligning with the Tao means shedding the self-punishment of unmet expectations. If I hadn't expected every day to be good and instead felt grateful for the universe granting me another tomorrow, I might have aligned with the Tao sooner. Instead of waking each day demanding it be "good," I can greet tomorrow with gratitude for simply being. This shift doesn’t erase pain or frustration—those are part of life—but it frees me from the cycle of blaming myself when life doesn’t go according to plan.
We can find freedom when we stop labeling and expecting, and instead live in harmony with Tao.
Do you want to encourage more learners to follow the Tao?
I’d absolutely love your support at any level that’s comfortable for you.
$1 per month ($10/year)
$2 per month ($20/year)
$3 per month ($30/year)
$4 per month ($40/year)
$5 per month ($50/year)