By way of background, for the past five years I’ve started each day with a 15 minute series of standing exercises (called ba duan), staring out a window looking across the valley onto the Oquirrh Mountain range seen above. It began as a way to enhance a decades long daily practice of tai chi but then morphed into its own thing.

Despite ramping up the physical challenges (bent knees; raised heels; balance on one leg; slow high kick with the other) it grew easier – to the point of boredom. And a bored mind wanders.

Thus a chance to multitask: a time for peaceful meditation. At least that was my original idea.

But many mornings weren’t peaceful at all. A bored mind reels with life’s details. Mundane stuff to be resolved. Plans to be set. Perhaps then reconsidered. Pondering the state of relationships with others. A cascade of thinly connected thoughts.

And eventually, watching all that meandering, a mind comes around to reflect on the thought process itself. One starts thinking about how thinking works.

For me, two simple observations crystallized:

• Thoughts follow a stream of associations continuously bubbling along in linked succession.
• Any feelings about these thoughts arose solely from prior expectations.

The first observation – i.e., thoughts are connected through associated recollections – is straightforward enough. Anyone who has ever wondered how they got to thinking about something in particular can often work backwards to identify the prior thought that led them there … and then to the penultimate one before that … and so on.

But to me, the second observation was more of a surprise.

It arose while posing a seemingly simple question: How am I feeling about this new thought? … in the purely emotional sense.

At various points, my answer was: Nothing.

Angry? Happy? Sad? Frustrated? Joyful? Regretful? Satisfied? Bored? …

Nope. I couldn’t detect feeling any identifiable emotion whatsoever.

This struck me as odd. How could that be? After all, I always have feelings of one kind or another, right?

Well, it turns out, no. Apparently not always.

Okay then, why not?

It took a few more days of musing to notice that my experiencing an emotional state about a newly-arising thought hinged upon my having some prior expectation as to how things ought to be.

Expectations themselves can be met, unmet, exceeded, created, altered, argued, challenged, whatever. But as long as they exist, there’s often a gap of some degree between what one’s expectations call for as contrasted with what is perceived as the reality on the ground. Past, present or future.

How the former compares with the latter becomes the ground from which emotions spring. At least that’s where most of mine seem to come from.

To be clear, there are a select few emotions that are unbounded by expectations – notably, unconditional love for family and friends. But otherwise, my emotions seem to spring from how I understand reality squares with my expectations.

If I have no meaningful relevant expectations on a thought? Then I cannot seem to identify an associated emotional state about it. It seems that’s what genuine acceptance produces (or apathy?).

However, this then led me to observe a logical corollary:

• If I could detect a feeling arising from something about which I was thinking, I must therefore hold some kind of expectations about it.

This might not sound like much of a revelation, but for me it was eye-opening.

Not merely because feelings are connected to expectations, but because having feelings was a reliable biomarker for having expectations of which I was often unaware. And taking a moment to discern what expectations I held – most often without prior conscious evaluation – allowed me to question the basis for having such expectations.

This line of thinking may also sound sophomoric to some. But for me, it created an interesting new thought association…

When noticing I have strong feelings about something, I try to ask: Well, what had I been expecting? Was that reasonable? Was it helpful? What if I considered abandoning this particular expectation?

Sometimes, feelings are essential to our experiences and can stir us onward to make important decisions and take difficult actions. In which case, any associated expectations may well be entirely valid and should hold up to scrutiny.

But, often enough, many of my expectations are not particularly helpful – and just get in the way of my making wiser choices and enjoying greater tranquility.

So I continue to stand there each morning watching my mind wander. And feelings often arise. And with just a moment or two of reflection, I can usually discern their associated expectations.

It’s then surprising to me how often I can easily jettison an expectation of which I was previously unaware.

Upon doing so, I quickly return to the relaxing peace of simply standing there – savoring the tranquil boredom of looking out the window as morning rises on the mountains across the valley.