Be Happier with Zero Expectation | Hacker News Reader

Be Happier with Zero Expectation

bobbyong.com

33 pointsbobbyong31 comments

This is true but it's just not realistic. There are situations in life where expectations are totally appropriate. I'd even argue that expectations drive us forward. And if you have no expectation of an outcome, how can you be happy or sad at all at the end? Or how can you tell there has even been an outcome?

If I have to drive somewhere and have no expectation of arrival time then I'll neither be happy nor sad when I get there. I'll have just gotten there. However if I severely lower my expectations then I can be happy when I get there.

But I'm being pedantic here so I'll bring this back to reality now. Disappointment, heartache, sadness, and gloom are part of life and should not be avoided. We often find the motivation or drive to change and improve through our negative emotions. Sure, it sucks to feel that way but it's just as important as being happy and one shouldn't run from those feelings.

If you have good coping skills you can face disappointment head on, feel shitty for a bit, and then plow through and find some happiness or a silver lining. If you've got poor coping skills you'll be running away from all negative emotions and totally stunting your emotional growth because of it.

I know the author wasn't trying to write an authortitative piece on happiness so I won't criticize him. What I will do is add a little wrinkle to his whole point which is: Eliminate or lower expectations when the outcomes aren't important. So, for example, traffic is actually a perfect example. If you can eliminate your anger and frustration over being late or being stuck in traffic you're doing yourself a huge favor as being upset over it isn't doing anything for you. However feeling upset and having expectations about your career or a promotion or meeting a pretty girl one day can be quite helpful. The negative feelings associated with not getting any one of those things should push you to change your situation and get them somehow.

So all in all, I guess the TL;DR version would be: Apply the article's wisdom wisely, not broadly.

Contentment is an important form of happiness. Older people generally feel happier (there are research findings on this, but I don't remember the source right now) because they are more contented.

A key wisdom of Buddhism is that through sustained practice you can deeply understand the world, the mind, and their natural ups and downs. If you truly live by that understanding, you will earn a profound peace of mind and be free from any sufferings that accompany most lives. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nirvana)

Note that the practice may take as long as the mastery of other arts, like piano or chess, but it is definitely achievable.

@nachteilig posted an article (http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/lowered-expe...) in one of the comments below that mentioned a study by University of Chicago sociologist Yang Yang where he found older people are generally happier

I think it is very hard to master the art of just being truly contented and happy and you are right in saying that it takes a lot of practice

I'm not sure much else needs to be added to what you said, as you nailed it. If you go through life zeroing out expectations, you start to feel very numb. The joy AND the pain remind you you're alive. Moreover, the pain makes the joy that much better.

This is all philosophical so I'll avoid trying to impart platitudes, except to say be wary of advice when it recommends approaching every problem in life the same way.

"And if you have no expectation of an outcome, how can you be happy or sad at all at the end? Or how can you tell there has even been an outcome?"

I've had a problem with this for most of my life, sad to say. It works really well for blocking out sad times but it obviously blocks out happy times as well. I have not yet figured out a way to correct this because it's well ingrained. Have any HNers worked out solutions for this?

You have low expectation of the end-result. If something pleasant happens at the end, you will be happy. If something bad happens, that's expected. Make sense?

Somewhat. I'd agree that my expectations are low for what is happening and what I think may happen, but I wouldn't say I expect bad things to happen. I'm attempting to learn to create normal expectations for myself. For example, I'm about to move to Europe next week and I find myself not excited about it. Also, the long-distance relationship with my gf is about to go from as-is to living in the same apt once I move, and I also don't think much about it. I know they are good things and I'm more than sure I'll be excited once I get there but I'm not there now so my expectations are pretty low to non-existant.

I've found it works out like this: Make plans, not expectations. The difference is subtle. I make plans, I even consider potential outcomes and how to handle them. But I don't pin all my reactions on a belief about the outcome. (I think a good definition of expectations is: belief that a particular outcome is the just or deserved one). So when everything goes sideways, I'm not stuck in some place of disappointment or shock. I just try and roll with it. When focusing on a belief that a specific and single outcome is the right thing, it is easy to miss opportunities to pivot to a better, unplanned outcome. It is easy to miss opportunities to reach a not quite as good outcome but avert disaster.

Basically, the idea is: shit happens, unexpected things happen, reality gets in the way of plans as a matter of rule. So be adaptable. Expectations of certain outcomes take away adaptability.

You can still be happy when your plans work out, you can be happy because you had a goal of "making money" or "getting a better job", or whatever, and you an be sad because "i didn't get a job i wanted, but ended up with this almost as good one over here". Basically, I find it silly to tie emotions to one specific expectation rather than as a reaction to what is actually happening.

Yes, I once read "be flexible in approach, but sure of the destination", but what I seem to do is to be flexible in approach, and flexible in the destination. In essence, there are many ways to the moon, but "...if you miss, at least you'll land among the stars," thus I end up dividing what I really want into smaller positive eventualities and I try to be happy with whatever I get. I suppose the real issue is a mix of lowered expectations, drive and enthusiasm. Being hungry for that one thing and going after it. In a sea of possibilities, it's tough for me to choose that one thing, though I wouldn't expect otherwise from someone like me, a generalist and an INTP.

I don't know if the author intended it, but there is a difference between wanting and expecting. Implicit in expecting is that your deserve it. So when you don't get it, it is downgrade. Wanting still allows for aspiration, but with more gratitude when you get it, and somewhat less disappointment when you don't.

I don't think having few expectations necessarily means numbing down your life or your emotions. I think you simply find that there are many things that needlessly take space in your life or might make you act poorly towards other people. As a personal choice (which of course doesn't have to apply to everybody), I've lowered my expectations to something that basically boils down to "being a better person". It's the biggest drive I have and it requires very little with the exception of learning, understanding and empathizing.

"[...] plow through and find some happiness or a silver lining"

What you're suggesting here is that happiness has to come in bursts (for lack of a better word). While I think that can be true, I believe the kind of happiness the OP is referring to is more deep-seated. By no means does it exclude other emotional states, but it reduces anger to a minimum. Although "Disappointment, heartache, sadness, and gloom" may be constructive, I honestly don't think anger is.

There is this German saying: "Happiness equals results minus expectations". And I have to agree, expectations are easy to miss, especially when you don't learn to lower them. I used to constantly get late to basically anywhere because I just did not factor in the time to shower, reading emails between putting on clothes, etc. And boy did this stress me out. When I started to pay more attention to my life in general (focus on the current moment and such), such stressors just disappeared because I learned to not get into such situations.

Pretty cool German saying. Care to write it in German? I did learn a lil German n would be interested to know it :)

Glück ist Wirklichkeit minus Erwartungen.

(As far as I know think this saying originated in Hinduism in the first place and found its way into the german linguistic area somehow)

Awesome. Thanks for sharing! There's a lot of wise words of wisdom from the eastern religions

I'm surprised it's not a massive singular compound word

I know it as "Glück ist Erreichtes minus Erwartetes.", pretty much the same.

This doesn't work at all for me. I love having expectations. I love looking forward to things.

I'm going on a trip in May, and I expect it to be great. If it sucks, I might be a bit disappointed, but the vacation is a week, and the time I can look forward to it is several months. If the vacation turns out to be great, I'll feel great about it. Would I feel even greater if I had no expectations? Don't know. I really don't think the delta of getting pleasantly surprised outweighs the months of looking forward to the trip.

Being able to accept what you can't change (e.g. being stuck in traffic) without getting overly frustrated is conducive to happiness, no doubt. I'm not sure what it has to do with expectations; if I expect to be stuck in traffic all morning, that doesn't make it more fun when it actually happens.

I got back from a 10-days backpacking trip to Thailand and Laos a few weeks back and I totally enjoyed it partly because I went with zero expectation. I did not know what to expect (no research) and I did not expect anything. I did not book any hostels and just went with the flow.

I have no must-see travel list nor do I have any must-do travel stuff. Anything interesting was a net positive feeling for me during the trip. Anyone interesting I met was a net positive feeling for me. If I had expected to see a certain place or do a certain thing and could not accomplish that during the trip because of bad weather or schedule, I will be disappointed. I did not feel disappointed at all for 10 days.

Well, different people might like to plan their life differently and you can feel right in having expectations if that's what you prefer. I just found it awesome to see a place without knowing what to expect.

I guess it comes down to how specific expectations you have. I don't plan everything minutely, I just expect it will be a great experience in general, whatever happens. That way I look forward to it, and enjoy thinking about it. But I don't have detailed plans.

Still, if I did, the important thing would be to handle changes of plans well. The absence of plans in it self does not determine happiness for me.

This illustrates the way I see the "thing" with expectations: "They come from previos experience(including research as previos experience)". The Zen's mind, begginers' mind books suggets to keep your mind open to all outcomes, despite your experience (easier say than done, however).

It's hard(at least for me) to control expectations (I have evidence[bayes] that supports those expectations). In the other side, the outcome, is what actualy happened so you should add it to your evidence and update your prior beliefs for the next time.

TL;DR avoid expectation (not the real point); accept the outcome and update your experience (could be a better aproach)

Amazing how we the more we advance civilization, the better we are at ignoring 10,000 years of human wisdom. I suppose it's never a bad thing when someone rediscovers these tidbits for themselves.

This is reminiscent of the Taoist virtue "to hold fast to the submissive is called strength." Or in other words, if a person never competes, he can never suffer defeat.

Yeah, I hear this a lot. And I'm sure that for most people the pendulum should swing more in that direction. But like everything you have to strike a balance. ZERO expectation really? To just take one example, what if you're a boss? I know I would be happier if I didn't expect anything out of my subordinates and they probably would to, but I'm guessing the shareholders might not be down with my new zen attitude.

I think you are conflating two things: What outcomes you are attached to (what triggers your emotions etc.) vs. what you work towards.

It is perfectly possible to work hard towards a goal, including motivating others to do the same, but not be personally attached to the success or failure of the outcome.

I lift weights. I go into the gym every day and try to do better than last time. I struggle with increasing my bench press at the moment. But I still go in and try my hardest and vary my progressions to try to overcome my sticking point.

But I don't leave after a bench session all stressed out over not hitting the next weight up: I'm not attached to the outcome.

Reminds me of why the Danes are said to be very happy--low expectations.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/07/19/lowered-expe...

Great article. "Danes would make good Buddhists. They live their lives as the Buddha advised: in the present tense, not grasping at some future happiness jackpot."

Also the quote by @manmal is mentioned. “Happiness equals reality minus expectations.” Given that neat formulation, there are two ways to attack the problem: boost our reality or lower our expectations.

Interesting stuff.

I don't think this is something you can just "turn off" and/or change. I think your personality can either allow you to do this, or not. You can tell me all day to not have expectations, but that means nothing to me. I don't understand how to "flip off that switch." I'm not saying the author is wrong, but I just don't think I can agree that anyone can just not have expectations. I know I have times where I didn't have expectations and things worked out great and I was happy, but it's not like I can tell my brain to always react that way. It's just how I am, and I wish I could change that, but I honestly don't know how.

Does anyone have any real suggestions on how to achieve this "zero expectation" mindset, other than as vague as "just change your mindset" or something to that degree?

The Bard said it well:

"O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space—were it not that I have bad dreams."

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” – Shunryo Suzuki

Haven't read the article yet (I will), but I recognized your site due to my work with userena :)

Reply on news.ycombinator.com