You’ll Ruin Your Life By Trying To Live Up To Unrealistic Expectations, So I Dare You To Leave Them Behind

Expectations have never been my thing. I’ve never had a life plan drawn up in my head. I never wanted to be married by my mid-twenties, I never had a dream career, I never wanted to own a house with a white picket fence.

I just don’t like expectations, I feel like they ruin the fun.

I moved to Australia and one of the things my roommate asked was, “Is Australia like what you expected it to be?” And in that moment I realized I moved to a different continent and I didn’t even have any expectations of what it would be like, I was just simply excited to be there.

When you live a life with no expectations you are rarely disappointed and you are free to just enjoy the moments and experiences as they happen. I’m not saying things will always work out, because they won’t, but it allows you to have an open mind.

We live in a world where everyone has these deadlines in their head and they generally go something like this: graduate high school at 18, graduate college at 22, work your dream job, get married at 25, buy a house and start a family.

Those “deadlines” and “expectations” sound like hell, tbh.

I would rather live a life of spontaneous moments, filled with freedom and laughter. I’d rather do the things I love than just buy a house because it feels like what I’m supposed to do. I’d rather live my life with no strings attached and let the wind take me where it wants to go. I’d rather just be happy than conform to expectations that the world decides will make me happy.

There is no bonus cash or guaranteed promotion or happiness if you do everything you’re supposed to do, anyway. No one is going to be standing there with a suitcase of money because you accomplished everything you’re supposed to in your twenties.

That’s not how life works.

You can have all the expectations in the world, but that doesn’t mean if they come true that you will be happy.

Rarely, if ever, do things in real life match up to the made up expectations we have in our head because when we’re planning these extraordinary things we often forget that life happens. There will be interferences, problems, stress and everyday things we just forget to think about while we have this grand plan in our head.

We have this idea that if we had certain things or amounted to certain goals or had a certain amount of money in our bank accounts that we would be happy. We assume that those who are wealthier, more attractive and appear to have it all figured out are happier than we are because we’re still eating off the dollar menu, but that’s not true.

You can appear to have anything you want together on the Internet while your life is truly falling apart in the palm of your hands.

Expectations of how life is supposed to be lived is toxic. There are no rules to life. There are no timers or expiration dates if you don’t find love at a certain age. There is none of that so stop expecting things and just live.

Your life can be complete without a college degree at 22. Your life can be complete without being married at 25. Your life can be complete without owning a house at 30. None of this stuff actually guarantees you success or happiness, it’s just something most people have made up in their heads and that’s the real killer.

We set expectations so high that things will always fall short and we wind up unhappy.

So I dare you to leave your expectations behind, I dare you to just live your life without any requirements and see where it leads you. It could lead you across the world and living out of a bungalow with a happy and healthy mind. It could lead you to new inspiration and to opening your own business by yourself. It could lead to exactly where everyone else wants to be with a marriage, kids and a mortgage.

You never truly know what life has in plan for you, but expecting certain things by certain ages will be one of the only things that will kill you while you’re still alive.

Let go of your expectations and just start living a life that makes you happy without regard to what your friends want and your parents expect from you. Anything is possible in this life, you just need to believe in yourself and your dreams. The rest will fall into place and you’ll see how pleasantly surprised you’ll be when you never expected things to turn out a certain way.