August 17, 2025
When it comes to life, we usually overestimate the big moments and underestimate the small ones. Today’s Thought of the Day and Question of the Day remind me that lowering the bar isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, sometimes it’s the secret to happiness. Let’s dig into why expecting nothing can feel like freedom, and how low expectations sometimes give us the sweetest surprises.
Thought of the Day: Do not expect anything and love it.
At first glance, this feels like the kind of advice you’d find scrawled on a bathroom stall at a yoga studio. But it hits differently the more you sit with it. So much of our unhappiness comes from expectation. We expect people to act a certain way, events to play out smoothly, and our mornings to go exactly as planned, until the toddler spills orange juice on your laptop, and suddenly your day feels “ruined.”
But what if you flipped that? What if you didn’t expect your day to go perfectly? What if you just embraced whatever happened and loved it for what it was? Then the spilled orange juice isn’t a disaster, it’s just part of the comedy of being alive.
I’ve noticed that some of the best days I’ve had started with no plans. No expectation, no pressure, just space for things to unfold. And often, those days gave me the memories that stuck. That’s the heart of today’s thought: if you stop expecting life to give you what you want, you’ll start loving what it gives.
Question of the Day: What is something you had low expectations for and were not disappointed?
This is where the rubber meets the road. Low expectations can be freeing. Think about a work meeting that you felt going in, would be a waste of time, and it ended 2 hours later and everything could have been covered in 3 emails.
Or maybe it was a meal, some random diner on the side of the highway that looked sketchy on the outside and inside looked like it hadn’t been cleaned years. I once went to a strip club at noon on a Tuesday and thank goodness I only left with some funny stories.
Here’s the truth: low expectations don’t mean cynicism. They mean openness. When you walk in with nothing to prove, nothing to demand, you may leave the room delight or disappointment. The question you need to ask yourself is, are you ready to be underwhelmed and make some memories?
For a similar reflection, check out The Circus Inside You where I wrote about not taking life too seriously.
Join the Conversation
So tell me—what’s something you had low expectations for that ended up surprising you? Drop your answer in the comments. And if you like reflecting on these kinds of questions every day, join my free daily email where I share the Thought of the Day and Question of the Day straight to your inbox.