lowering your expectations.

I have been thinking recently about how much happier I would have been in my life with this simple concept. I am glad (at 45) that I understand it now, and am willing to accept life as it comes, not how I will or force or desire it to be.

I can be much happier in the world, with others and myself, if I accept things as they are and not how I expect them to be. This is one of the many life lessons I have learned as an exmo.

I agree. Less is more in so many ways. In my stays in 3rd world countries I was happy with less than all the amenities the US brings. More stuff means more stress.

There has just been a study done that shows this.

I don't know if it's so much about lowering expectations as appreciating reality more fully. We're programmed with such false measures of worth. It reminds me of those beautiful pictures of old people with tons of wrinkles. Society would say they are ugly, but are they? They're gorgeous in their own right.

What you bring to life matters more than what life brings to you. So many chase status and ego strokes rather than true satisfaction and peace.

Reminds me of Pink Floyd's "Wish you were here."

So, so you think you can tell
Heaven from Hell, blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?

Did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
Did you exchange a walk on part in the war
for a lead role in a cage?

How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl,
year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found?
The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

When my son returned from helping dig and install a sewage pipeline in a remote area in India, he said that the Indian people he became friends with were the happiest people he'd ever met. He added, "And they didn't have anything, but they were so genuinely happy."

It's a lesson I've been learning as well. Intellectually I've known this for most of my life, but it's become more real for me the last few years as I've come to understand and be comfortable with my own limitations and the limitations of others.

Losing my faith in mormonism has also helped as I no longer try to pray for things that are unlikely. As I used to believe that God had all power and could do all things for those with faith, I clung to the hope and faith in unlikely things. It's much easier for me to now accept things that are largely out of my control and focus on what I can change.