Why Being Attached to Outcomes Always Brings Disappointment

Why Being Attached To Outcomes Always Brings Disappointment

Saying to someone who is trying to navigate a difficult challenge in their life to “try not to be attached to outcomes” is like telling someone the tooth fairy will arrive in the morning and solve all your problems. Most everyone does not have the ability to make the connection. Mostly in part because most people do not know what no being attached to the outcome really means in the big picture of doing life.

Whenever you react to anything, whether it be a person or a situation, something someone says or does, you are attached to the outcome of the scenario. You hold a belief or expectation that things should go a certain way or the result that you expected, should have occurred. Breaking it down in simple terms, it is the energetics of “I want what I want when I want it.” When you have any expectations of how things “should” be, you have an attachment to having things your way and when that does not happen, you bring on the suffering.

Alignment with nature and reality

What the natural flow of surrender is creating without attachment to a specific outcome is being in alignment with nature and reality. When plants scatter their seed to sprout, they do not know which seeds will sprout or where they will be taken but rest assured there will be growth from those seeds as the wind takes them where they are meant to land. When you create a conversation or a situation, you really cannot know where that energy will go.

Very often life moves in directions that you could never foresee, or plan for. Accepting this basic truth of existence is the essence of non-attachment. It is what you are here to experience in this life journey. You are born into bodies that will eventually die and everything that you hold important today, will be of no importance 100 years from now.

6 types of attachments

Not being attached to the outcome of things in our life is one of the hardest day to day lessons we have to practice. Doing a little research, experts on social behavior have these facts that may help you identify, stop or adjust the amount of energy you put “out there” to make you feel worthy, secure or loved through holding onto expectations.

1. People Attachments prevent us from looking within to our own identities and issues. Clinging to someone in a relationship often masks an underlying sense of lack or unworthiness and never gives you the opportunity to know the real you.
2. Identity Attachments keep us stuck in emotional habits that stop you from giving yourself the freedom to react and respond with more wisdom and awareness.
3. Relationship Issues come from the attachment and expectations of what your partner should say or do. Rather than resisting and creating conflict, stay grounded in yourself. Find the compassion for the other’s fear and confusion.
4. Possession Attachments is all about fear of loss. You can have as many possessions as you want, but if you depend on material things to be the only thing to have value or feel happy, then you have let your possessions define you. Regardless of how attached you are to that Prada handbag, you really don’t own anything. Nothing will be taken with us from this existence when we leave.
5. Attachment to wanting what you don’t have leads to interminable unhappiness. Instead, shift your focus and gratitude on the wonderful gifts you already have in your life. Even the smallest notice of a blessing can shift your focus away from lack.
6. Needy Attachment makes you a victim of your circumstances. Do you really need what you think you need or can you live without it? Saying no to one’s self-indulgence grows character.
7. Belief Attachments only allows you to intellectually and emotionally live in a small space. There is a big world out there with an infinite amount of beliefs. Being open to another’s expands your awareness that we are all one.

(READ: How A Child’s Fears Grow With Us Into Adulthood)