The great expectations

Expecting of someone is a great way to hurt yourself. By putting on our hopes in others, we put ourselves in cross hairs of being disappointed and let down. Moreover focusing on something makes its grow, like I said in the previous post feeding the thoughts make them grow. As we are engrossed into feeding our expectations, dreaming of and planning about what and how things will or should turn out, we raise our expectation higher.

When we seldom have control even of ourselves. It is like the classic example of “don’t think about penguins” which actually makes you think about those white black mammal birds. When you the one do not have control over even yourself, how can you think of controlling over others? They have their own world, problems and circumstances. Yes it is okay to inspire, coax and suggest someone; but putting on great expectation over someone is just plain foolishness.

Infact gratitude and expectations are two sides of the same coin, just as expectation leads to the path of misery, gratitude can make you feel blissful and happy.

Here is a situation, you go to a shop to buy something.. now if you think that it's the shopkeeper’s job to sell stuff, that he is there to make some bucks for himself.. you will not be grateful, instead you’ll just get the stuff and maybe even be grumpy about how he made more bucks than he should have and things like that (envious). If you however are grateful, you will realize how hard he works. You will see that he is the one who has to wait for hours for a customer to come, he has invested quite a lot in maintaining his shop and how he has been of service to you.

Being grateful however does not come along with expectations, when there are expectations, gratefulness is potato. So instead of being expectant of someone, we should try to be grateful. Even the smallest act needs to be noticed and attributed, Stephen Grellet has rightly said in his words that “We are here in this world for a while. Nice things that we can do for others that we can do or any kindness that we can show to anyone, let us do it when we can. Let us not strain from doing it, for we shall not pass this way again.” ― Stephen Grellet

Being thankful and grateful is a great way to be away from expectations. The great expectations are evil, and they tend to do no good to anyone, neither the expectant nor the expected.