Expectations

EXPECTATION
Expectation is one's biggest foe in life.
Expectation breeds disappointment and disappointment gives way to gloom.
Is it?????
I had a chapter in my English text “A Disappointed Man” by Robert Lynd .It dealt with this same theme of ‘expectation breeds disappointment’. The solution according to him was that we must not expect anything. We must anticipate worse to be happy with the result.
But I cannot agree. How can I? If at this age I don’t expect anything from life, when will I? My life is built up on expectations; expectations from others and myself. Mostly, I succeed in coming up to my expectation; at least I try. But several times I have been unable to come up to the expectations other’s set for me. Either they are too high for my caliber or I’m quite lazy. :-)
Expectations are my way of looking ahead lovingly at life. I expect wonderful things to happen to me and to people who are all part of my life. I expect good things to happen in future, so I work pleasantly in the present waiting for the joy. Life may not always be as good as I expected, but it has never been unlivable. I feel that is fair enough. I also tend not to expect too much from people. Simple things like love, respect, kindness, care, smile, trust are all I expect from others; because these are real ingredients that make life as happy as can be.
Yet there are times when people fall miserably below my expectation. My first reaction is always of disappointment. It’s because I usually put extra effort from my side to help people to come up to my expectation (because basically I am a human, with uncountable vices and prejudices).such disappointments always lodge in my heart for long durations in guise of sadness. Sadness is, by nature, very slow to recover.
It’s said a child burnt with hot milk fears even chilled curd. Anyway that child is not at all like me. I’d always give even hot milk a second or third chance, expecting it not to be as hot as before.
Because life is worth living only if one has an expectation from oneself or from the world…
Hail expectations!!!!!!!

Life is no where

“LIFEISNOWHERE”.
I got this as a sms and I read it as ‘life is no where’, a split second later I realized it also read ‘life is now here’.
I tend to brood over things a lot, so I kept pestering my mind asking if I was a pessimist. In normal life experiences I am quite optimistic. I always felt it is better to be like that-the more we frown at life the more life frowns at us. Then why did such a negative outlook creep into my reading.
Maybe am used to taking life in its smallest form that appears before me. That’s how life has always been for me. The issue at hand is of utmost priority and the consequences are often not quite thought about. I do think about them but maybe not as much as usually any sensible person would; for many times I have regretted my decisions. But that however helps me least in changing for good. I always enjoy taking what life brings-good or bad. I feel it adds to my life’s experience…
I need to have some real good life excerpts to relate to my kids in future. If I can’t learn from my mistakes, someday at least my kids can learn. I can reduce that much of trouble for them.
My parents come from a very conservative family, especially my mother. My dad did have an adventurous life (in comparative degree with my mother’s), But however it isn’t of much use to me. Two reasons-1). Being a girl his adventures can’t help me quite a lot as even in these days girls do not get the freedom boys of those days got(in south India) and so our situations in life would be quite different.2). My father dear has never been very expressive about the faults he committed in life (just a typical man).mothers are usually quite useful in relating their stories of adolescence and the mistakes they made. The intention is absolutely not to degrade themselves but to save their kids from a similar situation. But my mother was an innocent darling who never got the opportunity to commit mistakes (except maybe marrying my Dad, which again was not her mistake; her parents’ mistake, which she has been happily coping with for the past 30years). Yes, she has been able to guide me and my elder sister from mistakes she has seen others commit, just as I learned to avoid punishments watching and avoiding situations she got punished for.
See, how a small sms can put me on to think all this…… I cant restrict myself from thinking.
I can request my friends not to send me such provocative sms ……
What do you think????? Let me know.