We all have them. We expect the sun to rise, that we’ll get to our destination safely, that people will be relatively decent and cooperative (most of the time), and that things will more or less go our way. We also have a picture in our heads of what is necessary to be happy, and some of those requirements feel non-negotiable: the career, the relationships, the money, the spouse, kids, cure, solution, goal… When these don’t show up, our expectations are dashed, and we hurt.
Expectations serve as motivators; they move us to action toward reaching a goal. However, when we are rigidly attached to a specific outcome, we cannot accept any deviation from our expectation, and we cannot open ourselves to other experiences. This is known as the reality gap: the difference between the reality we expect and the reality that is.

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