Expectations

EXPECTATIONS Man is a social animal. He needs society for his social development and survival too. As a member of a community, he is surrounded by people and relationships, duties and responsibilities, chores and mores, customs and rituals, and rules and regulations. And as he comes face-to-face with all these elements, he is also engulfed by a deep sea of expectations. Right from the cradle to our very last breath, expectations fly in all directions around us... expectations from family and loved ones, neighbours and friends, colleagues and bosses, institutions and authorities, and the list is endless. Formally speaking, `expectations` are hopes and beliefs that something will happen. Sometimes we are tied to expectations under the guise of responsibilities. But eventually we cannot be labelled as denizens of Utopia, where all expectations will live to see the light of the day. We exist in a world where nothing is perfect or lasting. With the passage of time, people do change. Human nature can be so strange and unpredictable. Relationships develop in a jiffy and fade away before sunrise. Rules undergo replacement. Roles constantly keep on evolving. Customs get complicated. Duties become more complex. In short, everything under the sun changes. Change is the law of nature. In such a scenario, expectations are bound to be amended, altered and replaced too. Expectations bog us down. When unrealistic expectations are thrust on our shoulders overnight, we begin to perceive them as bogeymen. Every time someone somewhere fails to live upto someone`s expectation, you will hear the sound of disappointment, smell the scent of resentment and see the colour of gloominess, in addition to the ugly sight of loneliness, despair, depression and even suicides. Expectations can never make us happy. They have the potential to mar stable relationships. They can never don the mantle of ambassadors of goodwill and cheer. Our life is not destined to be a mere fragile bundle of expectations. Right from his early socialization, the heavy weight of expectations becomes a child`s Achilles` heel rather than his strength. Everyone of us, man and woman, has an universal right to be happy. Happiness is, no doubt, a state of mind, but simultaneously expectations spell out a state of bondage and enslavement. We need to liberate ourselves from this cruel bondage and stop living our life in accordance to the hopes and beliefs of others. Each of us is unique and deserves a fair shot at happiness. The only expectation we can embrace is that we must expect us to be happy and that is not impossible, difficult though it may seem. We feel happy when we simply perform good deeds and kind actions, which ushers us onto the path of personal growth and community welfare. Setting aside others` expectations can be painful and distressful and even disastrous to relationships. We need to curb our greed because avarice may be the seed, which gives rise to expectations in the first place. Greed is the root cause of unhappiness and misery. The key is to be happy with what you have. We have to be contented with our resources, however limited they may be. This may not guarantee you instant citizenship of felicity, but it will be the first step in the right direction. At the end of the day, happiness may not be a perennial exotic holiday destination, but relish it when you have the good fortune of encountering it. The only person, who does not enchain us with expectations, is God Almighty Himself. He does not expect anything from us. He just wants us to love and trust Him. He merely wants us to know right from wrong. It is only when we adore Him and have faith in Him that we are able to free ourselves from the shackles of expectations. Where there is God`s love and trust, there is absolutely no room for greed and doubt. Expectations thrive merrily in an atmosphere of cupidity and scepticism. So emancipate yourself from the servitude of expectations. Stop being an inmate of the most dreadful of all prisons, namely `Expectations`. To end on a promising note, Say No To Expectations!