Wednesday 26 August 2015

Your expectations someone's compromises?


Entire last week I have been feeling quite heavy - as if something concrete and massive had accumulated in me; I start my day happily, but by noon I feel some emotional fatigue as if somethings is missing; I count on my fingers one by one all that I can think of - my job, workplace, food may be, am I missing music, do I need to talk to old friends or may be not,  may be I have too little work or is it more work...Sigh! No concrete answers - but a web of answers leading to questions and questions leading to answers. Finally, I realize I was not so happy!

Having shared the last post with you, this state was not very new to me. I tried thinking a bit, which reminded me of November last year.

November last year I had visited Hampi, Karnataka - I am sure many of you would have either heard - heard a lot about it or may be you already visited that place. It is a place of diversity and art - diversity in people and art in stone. When you take the first ride from Gangawati to Hampi, what comes your way is an absolute bonus - early morning sun, rarest of the birds and massive rocks left and right. The rocks look familiar to anyone travelling from South India - for they have the same colour and form; what differs probably is the air which is clean, tender and calms you. This place known to people as the Heritage site, Hampi definitely has a lot more to lure you.

During those three days there, I saw a man. And I saw him daily.

I had been wondering why this man was all alone, why he looked at the sky every night with smoke in hand, why he stared at everyone around but never spoke, why he looked so lost - this man who was fair, had stubby fingers and he was our neighbour at the cottage. When everyone around was doing either something or nothing - meditation, reading, rope walking, yoga, cycling, trekking or just lazying around, this man did both - unmoved but always thinking. 

And then one evening while on phone, he spoke! And, He spoke a lot!

"I understand that I am the only one for you in the city but damn it I have many people around me. You make me calls and so many calls each day trying to monitor every minute and not just that - you make sure that you rule every minute of my day. Unlike you, who has nothing, I have many friends..

...silence for sometime after which he screamed again

Exactly! That is your problem - that you tell me things frankly. Now, I am telling you things frankly - if you don't see your phone getting answered please understand that I am either at work or having beer with friends - where I really do not want to hear from you! I cannot have fixed time to come home and you better do whatever you have to. All you need is me - me imprisoned with you! Why can't your understand that I  have a life outside of that home in which you stay..I realize it was my mistake to marry you - mistake that big which makes me run away from you and come to places where no one knows me, no one bothers me."

I quickly gathered myself and went inside my room shutting the door - realizing it was a personal moment and I ought to leave it personal for the man.

This made me think - what could be so wrong which made him so immune to making his personal moments public; as if he didn't care about anything at all!

I realized why I had been not so happy for that entire week!

Expectations - trust me, they kill everything, relations, feelings, confidence and even you. They make you worse than what you think you could ever be. Break ups being our favourite table topics, I feel how much so ever we drill down, the only cause is expectations. We begin forcing our happiness on compromises of other people. And then, we feel that emotional fatigue - a strong emptiness, similar to what I had been experiencing last week.

Over time, we see people change, things change and then we begin to panic - because people and things are not as how we are used to seeing them. One of my friends said something that I would like to share with you - He said  - "Look at everyone as supposed to play a part in your life. When their role is over, they move on. Do not try to hold them back, for the moment you feel you don't have them - they are already gone!"

Some people believe that if we have feelings, we are ought to have expectations. If we kill expectations, feelings weaken! Well, that sounds true!

I do not blame you for saying this; I myself thought alike in the past. Now, I think different. I am willingly sharing this secret with you today - how I managed to give up on expectations. And trust me, this one too is very simple.

Tame your mind; tap to tell it one simple thing - if my happiness resides on demanding something from a person which takes away even the tiniest bit of his/her happiness, things are going wrong. Every one who I love, value or respect has the right to stay they way they want to. What's the use if I start charging for all I give?

Look at everything just as it is - no preset requirements. Whatever later exceeds the preset limits, treat it as bonus.

There is another way to deal with this - do not be too greedy for your greed. Sometimes people not behaving the way we expect them to, does not only make us feel good but it also makes us find newer sources of happiness.

Have the power to your happiness in your hands and not in the hands of people who you love. If you start questioning their actions, all you get in return is a strained relationship.

But, who will teach me not to be greedy for my own greed? Especially at this point of my life - when I have learnt so much of life, seen so much of world and experienced so much of time.

Sometimes and many times when I experience things like this, I sense the irony in how we grow up. We grow up forgetting the most simple things - really, the most simple things!

If there was a teacher who came to me and scolded me by telling I should not be greedy, I surely would have understood but I think we are all a bit too old to understand the simplest things of life!

Taptrospect - this time to shed off the emotional fatigue.

P.S - When I spent the evening all alone on one of those high rocks watching sunset, I felt like a good human being. When I shared this with my brother, he repeated his question - "Is travelling that important to be a good human being?"

I am still thinking!










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