Expectations go wrong
by Thota Srinivas
Believe it or not …we all are stubborn…stubborn enough to think that people must behave the way we think is right; they must speak the way we know is right; they must do things the way we understand how things are to be done; they must have experiences similar to that of ours.
This happens with everyone of us.....if not in one situation , in some situations; if not with one person, with some other persons; if not in one case, in some other cases. We want to prove that people should act according to us by being stubborn. That is how we create EXPECTATIONS.
But don’t you think
this will be the case with others as well? They too want us to act
according to them. Their wish……seems absurd but we too wish the same. Is this
normal? Is this natural? – expecting others to act according to us…is this
normal behavior?
The fact is WE HAVE PROGRAMMED OUR
MINDSET IN THAT WAY. When we were children, our mind was plain…as plain as an empty paper ready to accept
the things from the people around us. Our elders, parents and teachers
programmed or designed our mindset. But how did this happen?
It's apparent! We OBSERVED them behaving in a certain way… we saw our parents expecting things from us and getting disappointed when our actions did not match up their expectations.
We saw our teachers letting us
think the way they want us to think but not the way we are able to think….seeing
..observing…noticing…the typical behaviour, reactions and responses of our
elders, we started believing that this is how we need to react ….this is how I
need to understand the people….this is how I need to respond to people.
We do not tend to think too much about
this reality…but this is the fact! Children’s behavior, attitude and actions
are…mostly ….carved and moulded by THE CONSCIOUS AND SUB-CONSCIOUS ACTS AND
REACTIONS OF THE ELDERS around them.
So now we understand the fact that
expecting others to behave according to our wishes is not normal or natural…it
is how we have been trained by our elders. But is it right to expect people
behave according to us?
When we believe that people (our
children/spouse /students /…) must act according to us…we are connecting our peace of mind to that expectation. That is to say, " If my child listens to me, I am
fine or happy else my mind gets disturbed." This is how we have programmed our
mind.
Just imagine, if our happiness depends
on how they act according to us…don’t you think…others’ happiness depends on
how we act according to them? This sort of expectation is normal.
If we want others to act according to
us…others want us to act according to them.
For instance, we want our children to
obey us and listen to us…why? Because we feel that THEY ARE WRONG AND WE ARE
RIGHT. But the surprising thing is….they too feel the same….THAT THEY ARE RIGHT
AND WE ARE WRONG.
Who must agree with whom now?
Obviously we want our children to agree with us and we are very clever in
making them agree with us. We bribe them or threaten them or scare them. We
apply pressure on them so that they agree with us.
But do you think such agreement stays
for a longer period of time? We need to use more and more threats…bribes… and
pressure to let them agree with us for a longer period of time. A day comes
when we are not strong enough to use all these threats or bribes or pressure on
them and then they start using all these on us….because they got trained by us
when they were children. Now they know how to make us agree with them.
Now this is a case where our children are involved. So somehow we made them act according to us. Regardless of whether it is going to be successful or not elders make the kids obey them…..but let us comsider the case involving our friends…or our colleagues…or our employer….or the people around us.
Can we use
threat/bribe /pressure to let them act according to us ? Obviously,'No'…if we do, we give rise
to disagreements, conflicts, broken relationships and consequently lose our
peace thereby disturbing our own stable state of mind.
So let’s have a realization and confirmation that
people will never act according to the way we expect . If they do…it’s fine.....if
they don’t ..let’s still accept the truth that people have their own
definitions of right and wrong which cannot be impacted in most of the cases.
Let us not try to change their mindset. It is how they have set their mindset. If we are too ambitious about impacting others' mindset, there might be only a little probability of achieving this and that too at the cost of our peace of mind. And if we are least bothered about our inner peace, this entire analysis is not worthwhile. This assumes profound worth if our happiness matters. If that'd the case,let us alter our mind’s programming in such a way that the stability of our mind does not get disturbed even if others do not act or think like us.
That’s to say that no sooner do we disconnect ourselves from
expectations than we get closer to happiness and inner peace. This doesn't negate our bonds with others instead, our bonds get renewed with a meaningful lease of life.