All suffering comes from...

I saw an interesting webinar the other day in which Dr. Anderson, the founder of Optavia, said a key phrase that has stuck with me. I'm told it's a tenet in Buddhism. 

"All suffering comes from having expectations."

This doesn't mean to just go through life willy-nilly, like floating down a lazy river and going wherever it takes you. There is a distinction between intention and expectation. For me, the takeaway is to have intention and not expectation.

Another phrase I heard recently: "In life, you have to care, just not that much."

Dr. Anderson used the metaphor of a broken clock. A broken clock is right twice a day. That is about how often life will give us what we expect. Most of the time, we get an outcome that does not meet our expectations. For many people, this leads to suffering.

I would say my personal development and meditation work have helped me become more detached from outcomes. It's not easy to put in the work and seemingly have nothing to show for it, but again, that feeling is tied to having expectations. 

Maybe this is what the pick-up artists who have mastered "the game" are doing. They don't expect to get laid, but somehow they end up getting what they want.