I'm back with a new inspiration for a blog. Its NOT about Harry Potter again, so all those who read my blog and aren't in the habit of reading the Harry Potter Series need not be disappointed again.
What inspired me to write this blog is a conversation with my friend. This blog is organised as a pair of situations and my reasoning to it...So i will start off with what inspired me to write the blog and continue with my wandering thoughts after that.
Situation:
(Hey! Friend1- this is not exactly our conversation, but I have modified it so that other people can understand what I am talking about, not everyone knows things about you and me as much as we do ;))
Friend1: It really surprises me as to the number of people you are close to.
Me: Well that's me
Friend1: But you are Clingy.
Me: Yeah sure, if I consider someone really close to me i do so for life
Friend1: Don't you think you should be selective about who you consider close. I let very few people close to my heart.
Me: Why is that because you are scared that if you get close to a lot of people there are high chances that they might hurt you and so u are close to only those you are sure wont hurt you.
Friend1: Exactly.
Reasoning:
Why should I let someone to be really close to me only when i am sure that they wont hurt me? Well, even if I like the person a lot, I have zero expectations. My liking towards that person is not based on what I expect him or her to do. For example (This is how usually friendship breaks) even if that person goes ahead and speaks behind my back and I find out. There are two ways I take this back biting
1) If I am actually guilty of doing any such thing, its my opportunity to accept my mistake and undo it and I am thankful to that person for it.
2) If I am not guilty of it, i can only pity the ignorance of that person. But doesn't mean I stop considering that person as my friend because he or she dint think of me the way I wanted him or her to think of me.
I might face a ego battle between the two choices, but the truth is evident always if you choose not to camouflage it.
After I told my friend this she asked me
Friend1: So you are telling me that if at this instance (hypothetically) I tell you I wont be friends with you anymore you wont be hurt?
Me: I wont! I don't rule your mind, I don't expect you to trust me, I don't expect you to tell me everything that's happening in your life. Even if you choose not to talk to me ever I still consider you as someone close to me.
Friend1: :)
Me:When there is a world filled with nice people why should i restrict my liking to only a selected few.
Situation:
Another conversation with a friend at undergrad after all of us got our results.
Me: Whats wrong with you.
Friend2: I got a 75 in maths paper, I was expecting at least a 90. Its was my favorite subject, looks like I am not good at it after all. How did you do in your maths?
Me: I got a 92
Friend2: Wow your brilliant! How about Engineering Drawing, Its been your favorite subject and you've always topped it in college midterms. You've been the profs favorite too, he was expecting you to score a cent um.
Me: Well I got a 55.
Friend: Ooh god! Are you okay?
Me: Of course.
Reasoning:
The reason why you don't get the score you "expect" to get in a subject can be a wide range of factors beyond your control after you write the exam. But the expectations was what hurt the girl to the extent that she thought that it was not her favorite subject anymore? A 55 in my exam did not make me blind to the fun in engineering drawing.
Situation:
There was this friend of mine from another department who told me he had fallen in love with my classmate. He expressed his feelings to her, but she denied acceptance of his love for her, but assured him that she liked him as a friend. My friend dint come to terms with his rejection and continued to try to woo her. Time passed by they kept in touch as friends, by that time my friend got over his crush and there was a new girl in his life who reciprocated his admiration. My classmate then calls up my friend and the following is the conversation
Classmate: I heard from Pavi that you are going around with this new girl.
Friend3: Yeah, dint I tell you about her.
Classmate: Yeah, but I thought it was your one other pranks to woo me. I thought you were trying to make me jealous
Friend3: What are you talking about?
Classmate: You have betrayed me. I thought you like me and no one else. I liked you too.
Friend3: I did like you before and I expressed it too. You never accepted it and I have gotten over my past experiences. If you had told me yes before things would have been different, but this girl is who i want to be with now
Classmate: You are such a cheat I dint expect this from you. You have hurt me a lot.
Reasoning:
This girl based her liking on this guy because he for long without giving up tried to woo her? She expected him to take his admiration for her to his grave? If she did like him all she should have done is accepted it and the course of things from that point of time would have been happy. What she failed to notice is that her unreasonable expectation is what hurt her and that he was not a cheat.
Situation:
This is the time in my university when new students are coming in, and when they see us seniors around the place they tend to talk to us to gather information and also tell us how they feel about the new place. In one such conversation with a new student. (New Student(if you get to read this blog): Don't misunderstand me that I am trying to mock you, but hope you see the reasoning behind it)
New Student: I am feeling very home sick.
Me: Oh yeah you tend to be. Is this your first time out of home.
New Student: Yeah. I am sure I am going to miss my parents a lot. I am very close to them. When I have my exams they used to just bring my food to me in my room and come back to collect the dishes too. Living with friends is not going to be fun. My mom's such a great cook. I have to do with my cooking now :(. I never even used to wash my own plate at home. The houses are in such miserable conditions here, I dint expect the US to be like this. My room in India was so cozy. My parents have always made sure that they took care of everything for me all I had to do was go to college. So I am planning to go home in December so that I feel better about it.
Reasoning:
This conversation is not about only one particular student, but its based on what I have heard from a lot of people here. They actually miss their parents because they cant expect anyone here to do all what their parents did for them when they lived with them? So basically the hurt is not the absence of parents but the disappointment of expectations not satisfied by roommates or friends.
Situation:
I'm not trying to say I have never made the mistake of having expectations from people. This one is a good example. When i was applying to universities in the US I had one favorite university. I so badly wanted to get admission into that university. I emailed one professor in that university and he used to reply to my mails. He gave me suggestions as to how i could improve on my skills regarding my area of interest. This encouragement gave me an expectation that this professor will recommend my admission. But it so happened that i received a reject one night and what i ended up doing crash my self worth and cry all night.
Reasoning:
It was not the professor's fault. His replies to my mail doesn't guarantee me an admission in the university, he isn't the one in the selection committee. The fault was mine, instead of of expecting to get an admit i should have hoped to get an admit. Apart from the hope, i should have also realised that what I did was try my best and that I don't have any say over things beyond my control. This maturity of mind would have helped me handle the situation in a better way.According to me Hope cannot hurt. Expectation can hurt!
So what I am trying to say is that I don't think anyone has the right to expect anything from another living soul, even if its going to be your parents, your spouse, your best friend, your love....etc etc. And I cant see how you can get hurt or base your liking on whether they satisfy your expectations. Some of you reading this might have a question like - "So you mean to say you never get hurt? Don't tell me!". My answer to this is, of course I get hurt and that's when I do mistakes and don't feel good about it till I do something to correct it. I dont "expect" all of you'll to relate with this blog but I "hope" you see the reasoning behind it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
24 comments:
ha ha. Good one.
Expectation - assumption / belief.
This is the primary thing that leads to sorrow. You've found out the root cause for all sorrows. Congrats. When most do not even realize it, you have :). Following it is altogether a different thing though :p
Hope - is the desire.
Desire is the root cause for success (Oops, Buddha differs). Only if you "hope"(want) for something, you will work towards it, and the process of "hoping" (i.e working towards your goal) should give you happiness, not (even) the result.
Nice blog, I am hoping that everyone will follow it :P
and.. don't get me started on the grading techniques of Madras Univ.
~Barath
Barath: I never "expected" anything out of madras university ever...even before i realised the difference between expectation and hope :P
Gopal:
You misunderstand my blog.Note carefully
" I don't think anyone has the right to expect anything from ANOTHER living soul..."
What I mean is that you can expect nothing from anyone but yourself, you dont rule the other person's mind.
Your mixing up self-confidence and expectation.
My main point here is when you expect something from a person and you dislike him/her if he/she doesnt live up to your expectations its worse...Its more like an employer expecting work from an employee and firing the person if he doesnt live up to it.
So its not a defensive statement, its not tiredness, its not helplessness....it requires more strength to lead a life without expectations. Try it. I still havent reached the zero point, but hope to.
Thats my idea.
Hey Pavi,
this was a good one!
Well, abt the crush story that u just narrated, I have been counselling my friends about being fallen in love, many a times I have noticed that a person get infatuated and concludes that he likes the person when its actually the feeling that the other person likes him is what he is fantasized about. True love happens as a result of extreme liking and mostly its godly selfless. And regarding the expectations, to expect is human, I really feel that there is nt much charm left in life minus expectations, however one needs to learn to live with expectations being unsated as u need to realise that the other person from whom you are expecting is afterall another human being :D!
Rashmi.
Advertisements on Blogs????????
:o Whats happening? Crazy!
happened to stumble onto your blog...love the way you write..
Gr8 reasoning and excellent insights.. Can't stop readin ur abstract musings.. Keep blogging..
Arun
(read ur comment.. thanks.. hint of sadness, huh? Leaving all you wonderful ppl is the primordial reason.. Well, this line from the blog shud sum it.. "I was veiling a tumult of emotions, resultant of the eager heart to get back home after two years, as well as crumbling under the active distance from a home of two years" )
Interesting. Buddha sonnadha mutha sollitta.
Srini.
Hey Srini! thanks for your comments!
Buddha kuda sonnara?
I read a Rudyard Kipling poem with the lines
"If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son"
Hey hi,
Good blog.
I got confused with the meaning of the words EXPECTATIONS and HOPE. When I looked in dictionary, it gave the following explanation
To expect is to look forward to the likely occurrence or appearance of someone or something: “We should not expect something for nothing but we all do and call it Hope” (Edgar W. Howe). To hope is to look forward with desire and usually with a measure of confidence in the likelihood of gaining what is desired: I hope to see you soon
How do u justify "expecting is to rule others mind"? I guess to dictate is to rule others mind.
Your examples and the understanding were fine.
But I do read my following observation.
Your example 1: having many close friends.
You have so many close friends but not so many best friends do you? Probably you can expect your best friend to trust you, while u can hope your close friends to trust you at the same time u may not expect it from them.
Your second example your marks in engineering drawing. There is a difference in perception of expectation between you two. Your friend’s perception is to get good marks while your perception is having fun on the subject. Hence you found the subject to give u fun in spite of getting a lesser marks than what your friend thought you would get. So probably it dint affect you. But still you are having an expectation that the subject gives u fun.
In your third example, your friend having crush with your classmate. Why did he got over his crush? He too expected a reciprocation of love, which your classmate dint gives him while the new girl gave him. So he got over his crush with your classmate and developed it with that new girl.
In your fourth example. I agree your point to the fullest that those who missed their parents missed not because of their absence but the extra jobs which they were about to do themselves. But the difference is expecting from a parent and the friends.
A husband may expect his wife in not having extra marital affairs and vice versa. He shall not desire, probably he may expect. He expects because he thinks she is his and he is hers. There is a bond. He cannot expect that with the next lady at next house. Coz there is no bonding.
In your last example. It was perfect. You expected from a person whom you thought might push u. but you never had a bonding relationship. Neither he had the capacity to that. But did u cried coz he dint help you or you cried because you dint get an admission in that university?
~kgn
Hey Pavithra,
I somehow found you on orkut, and from there found this blog. Quite liked your writings. I am still thinking about the inconstancy of emotion bit. I think I disagree with you but I am still unsure why...
In the meantime here is my contribution to the hope-expectation thread:
"Behind every upset there is an unfulfilled expectation" - having introduced to this idea quite some time back, I started believing in the zero-expectation philosophy.
But as you discovered the hope-expectation dichotomy, I discovered the target-expectation dichotomy..
I noticed that as I tried to minimise my expectations, my efforts towards to achieve the goal reduced. This was no good. I wanted to excel but the zero-expectation philosophy came in the way!
That was when I realised that actually efforts need not be really linked to the expectations anyway. In fact, prior to one's efforts, there is no role for the expectations. Expectations come into play only _after_ the efforts are done.
For e.g. if I am studying for an exam, the amount of efforts I put in is not related to the expectations I have from the result. Rather, it is related to the target I have set for my performance.
That was when it became clearer, that target and expectation are two different things. Before the event occurs, there is a target to be achieved (in the ideal world the highest). There are efforts to be made to achieve that target. Having made those efforts, when I sit back and wait for the result, the target is not at all relevant. What is relevant is the expectation (zero in the ideal world).
This led me to realising the karmaNyevAdhikAraste from Gita, and I was amazed at how one of fundamental Indian philosophical thoughts came to me in such a convoluted manner!
OK.. so now the essential question. Where does hope fit in? I do not understand hope as well as I understand targets, and expectations :) The first question to ask is "does hope comes before efforts or does it come between efforts and results". For example do we start working for something because we hope we can achieve it, or do we hope that we will achieve the desired result, having already done our part of the work? or both?
I think answer to this is the key to resolving this issue. If hope comes before efforts, I don't think it can hurt. But if hope comes after efforts probably its no different than expectations!
Did I make any sense? :)
KGN:
Frankly I disagree with your reasoning... Anyways for each their own... so each keep theirs :) I dont intend to impose my thoughts!
For all I know you might be right in this case in worldly sense...because even if i am wrong i like to be ME :D
Mausam:
Dint i mention that i dont expect things from OTHERS! I do expect stuff out of myself! When it comes to issues of myself...anything bizzare,weird, good, bad, crazy, conservative etc is fine....but when it comes to others i have no right over their doings!
Softly said...
Softly said....
hmmm this is wat i'd like to comment on
case 1 :ofcourse there is no limit to the number of friends one can have.. but wud u not b more comfortable discussin certain delicate or personal issues only with someone ur really close with?...n r u saying that tht number can b infinity?.. i dunno.. somehow i dont c in the same lines...probably coz "the closeness" that one shares thru friendship is sometimes mishandled once too often...i can have many friends.. but not all will knw my deepest darkest secrets..
case 3 :ur damn rite abt this.. the gal was probably a lil unreasonable to have (over)expected him to keep following her when it was quite obvious that anyone with some amount of self dignity would jus get over things and move on (however hard it is)once she made it clear that it isnt gonna b reciprocated .. he has a life too..
case 4 :well.. sometimes u realize the value of things only when u don't have em(or it) with u.. n that holds true here too.. if u have a room mate helpin u out wit things(stuff that ur folks do 4 u durin xams) it doesnt mean that parents wont b missed.. they still will b untill u get used to being independant...n who knows mebe even after that.. home will always b missed as long as ur away from it.. its after all ur home!
all said and done... i agree wit the fact that hope probably doesnt lead to hurt .. but i say.. xpectations dont HAFTA lead u there either..cmon to xpect is only human... its OVERexpectations that end in disappointments.. and sometimes there is a very thin line between xpectations n overexpectations
@mausam : in my opinion hope comes between efforts completed and results... n NOT before the efforts are even made... in the latter case.. u mite tend to not give it ur best..
ps- pavi if u ever rite another blog wit lotsa such 'situations'... do consider numbering em... makes it easier for us to comment :P
:D sorry for that HUGE comment.. i shudve probably made a blog out of it! :P
My life's pretty much been an open book... at least so far... and i hope that would continue... so seldom have i had real secrets anyway ur right abt the choice of people... there are a very few bunch of ppl who i am really (i mean really) close with but others are pretty close to... it doesnt take me long to become close with someone ... u know it ;)
having expectations is human... i never said ive never had 'em! But I just thought things make more sense when u expect things from no one but urself... No matter what you dont rule another soul.
But subconciously I might be attaching expectations to people... its a difficult habit to grow out of completely ...we are just programmed that way!
I googled "a fine line between hope and expectation" not thinking I would find what I searched for... here it was ranked #1
Well it looks like it pulled up in as rank 1 because there is a line in the comments section that has 'a thin line' and yeah the blog is about hope and expectations... Anyway its interesting that you would google for something similar... thank you for leaving a comment :)
I, of course, a newcomer to this blog, but the author does not agree
Post a Comment