The World Owes You Very Little

Success and happiness depend on managing your expectations of others and taking responsibility for your life

Life is challenging and it’s not always fair. And the rigors of life will be much easier to navigate when you stop demanding or expecting other people or circumstances to cooperate with your needs or wishes.

The cold, irrefutable reality is that life can be tough and cruel. And many times, we have both people and circumstances disappointing us or actively working against us.

A friend of mine — who I’ve tried to encourage over the years — has had a particularly difficult time. Some of his adversity has been self-inflicted (mainly due to past mistakes), but most has been beyond his control. At times, his emotional fatigue gets the best of him. In those moments, he’ll ask, “Why does life have to always push me down?”

Our world is full of similar people who walk through life in varying degrees of disappointment, frustration, or anguish.

The specific reasons behind life’s challenges are as varied as each person’s background and context. There are, however, some common themes. And those themes — and their explanations — tend to fall into the arena of debate between philosophers, psychologists, sociologists, and theologians.

The Judeo-Christian explanation for pain and suffering points to the Garden of Eden story in the book of Genesis. Adam and Eve, as our ultimate ancestors and representatives of the human race, fell into sin. They, future generations (that would be us), and the earth were then cursed, and they were cast out of the Garden of Eden.

Thus ended paradise and began affliction.

Regardless of your religious beliefs, there are some powerful insights embedded in the Garden of Eden narrative. For example, when Adam and Eve were called on the proverbial carpet for their transgression, they made excuses and shifted blame. But ultimately, it was their own wrongdoing that led to their expulsion and punishment.

Even if you sympathize with Adam and Eve — even if you think they were somehow victims of a cosmic misunderstanding or an unnecessarily strict Deity — you can’t escape this unmistakable truth:

After all their denials, evasions, excuses, and finger-pointing, Adam and Eve were still outside of the Garden of Eden.

Many things will happen to you in your life — some good, some bad and some deserved and others not deserved — but you still have to take full responsibility for how you deal with those things.

Casting blame won’t work for you any better than it did for Adam and Eve.

Regardless of other people and other circumstances, you are still responsible for your life and the only chance you have at improving your situation is to fully embrace that responsibility.

Stop expecting and demanding the rest of society to solve your problems.

It’s not the government’s job or the community’s job or your family’s job to ensure your success. It’s your job.

In Goals! How to Get Everything You Want — Faster Than You Ever Thought Possible, Brian Tracy writes:

“Unsuccessful, unhappy people think and talk about what they don’t want most of the time. They talk about their problems and worries and who is to blame for their situation most of the time.”

You need to adjust your expectations of circumstances and other people. You need to adjust your expectations of life itself.

If you expect life to be easy and fair or other people and things to generally cooperate with (and meet) your needs and wants, you will be sorely disappointed.

What’s more, if you somehow think you are exempt from or above the flaws and imperfections of human nature, you are living a delusion.

All the people in the world are imperfect, limited, and flawed. All of them. That includes your parents, relatives, friends, co-workers, bosses, political leaders, religious leaders, and celebrities you admire. And it includes you.

A world full of finite and flawed people is a world full of ignorance, misunderstandings, inequities, injustice, and a whole lot of problems.

That’s the reality in which we live.

Understand it.

Accept it.

Deal with it.

Now, when I say “accept it” and “deal with it,” I don’t mean that you should surrender to a life of fatalistic misery. And this is where a word of caution is needed.

Some people have become so jaded, cynical, or bitter that they have nothing but (or little but) negative expectations of circumstances and others. This is not healthy either.

There’s a popular saying in personal development circles (often attributed to the late Earl Nightingale) and it goes like this:

You become what you think about.

If you surrender to cynicism, anxiety, or defeat, those things will begin to imprison you and define you.

Don’t surrender to negativity. There are indeed some things — many things — you can do to make your life better as well as the world around you.

The road to improvement begins with setting clear goals for your life. In the words of success guru Bob Proctor:

You must decide what you want and then begin moving toward it. You decide now, right where you are, and you begin with whatever you have.

That’s the beginning of your journey on the road to improvement. And then you must proceed down that road with diligence. As Steven K. Scott writes in The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: King Solomon’s Secrets to Success, Wealth, and Happiness:

Wake up and bring diligence into your life now. Your opportunities will be multiplied! Take responsibility for your life, your attitudes, your values, and how you spend your time.

Speaking of King Solomon, you would do well to read the book of Proverbs — the greatest collection of wisdom sayings in human history!

Think through what you feed your mind. If you feast on anger, outrage, despair, discouragement, or hopelessness…guess how you’re going to feel. And guess the kind of life you’ll then have.

Read helpful, constructive books and articles. Watch programs on TV and the Internet that will benefit you and encourage you.

Spend your time with positive, encouraging people. Try to listen to and connect with people who help you move forward in life. As Mark Victor Hansen writes in Living Your Dreams: Your Personal Success Program:

If you can’t hang out with them physically, hang out with their books (like this one) or audios, because the simple truth is that you can have virtually anything you want, tangible or intangible, if you write it down and take the necessary sacrificing action to get it.

Better thoughts, better friends, and better choices (including with your time and actions) will lead to a better life.

And when it comes to expectations, expect more of yourself than others.