“Stop Expecting‘ as it will hurt you more….”
My one and only sister gave me the discourse over the phone. No, she is not the elder one rather younger to me by four and a half years. But sisters are sisters…..your partner-in-crime, your free of cost shrink and when in need your lawyer too. I know for sure she wants me to stay happy but somehow I have a different view on this.
How can I not expect in a relationship! To me, ‘Stop Expecting’ is like stop breathing.
My life starts at the morning expecting the milkman to provide me a milk pack, then I expect my six year old to be little more accommodating while preparing him for the day and he in turn expects me to entertain him with five more minutes of ‘Oggy and the cockroaches time’; to be specific his cartoon time. Then I want my husband to wake up on time and start his day without me pestering him incessantly and in lieu he expects from me to allow him ten more minutes of napping and be his snooze timer. The list is endless as the day moves on.
In fact few days back I read somewhere which I call ‘Happiness Formula’ and that do not require a mathematical genius to resolve:
“Happiness is inversely proportional to expectation”.
I rather liked this formula which states the more you expect the lesser happy you are. What I liked about the formula is the relative association. But is life that straight a road that I reach my destination of happiness without any twists and turns just by controlling my expectation gear! I doubt! But then i hear mostly this ‘Stop Expecting’ term and that in turn will make you happy.
One thing which strikes my mind when I ponder over the matter a bit deeper is that when I expect my milkman to provide me with some milk, I am asking for a milk pack, something visible or my maid to clean household properly – a thing which can be supervised from the end result. But when I expect my husband to be more diligent to me, my friends to be more accessible or may be my in laws to be more understanding, it’s something invisible and abstruse. So, is it the tangible vs intangible/visible vs invisible? Anything which is subjective pursuing obscure trail makes us quiver or take one step back.
So I muse it’s not about the expectations. It’s about the nature or the subject of the expectations. There is nothing wrong in expecting. For me expecting is like having a hope, which may or may not get fulfilled. If you ask me, having expectations is better than being hopeless in a relation. As long as I live I expect but I do affirm that balancing and modulating on what to, how much to, when to and from whom to might give me a happy feet.
This somewhere requires a more of an integrated approach. We just cannot wake up one fine morning to be expecting less from others or vice versa. Rather, If we try to uplift our spirit or attitude to be more compassionate, mature, empathetic and sensible, yes indeed that might help us in fine tuning our expectation mode and which in turn will give us lesser ache. So I understand whoever says ‘Stop Expecting’ to me that you care for me but kindly don’t ask me to stop expecting, rather tell me don’t over-expect or have realistic sensible expectations’. Suddenly my phone rings as I am finishing this article. I pick it up and on the other side someone says,
“Why the hell you did not call me from morning….?”
I said, “Sweetheart, don’t over-expect as I was busy”….it was my one and only sister, my bestie.
