This Sunday, I was on a dinner and movie outing with a girl
whom I met a couple of weeks ago. After the dinner, we watched a movie and when
we came out of the plex, she wished to go for a stroll. That sounded like a
good idea to me.
So, I parked my vehicle by the side of the road. We came out
and started walking. The road was illuminated with pale
street lights. Low traffic, just one or two vehicles passing every minute. It was quiet and the silence was accompanied by cool wind.
We started discussing the movie that how boring it was and
how awful most of the actors were. We did that for a while. Gradually, our
discussion moved to relatively sensitive stuffs. And then, there, some of these
sensitive stuffs actually prompted me to write this blog.
So, this girl started telling me about one of her close
friends. I am reproducing an intercept of the description given by her as it
is:
“Praveen, I have done so much for my friend. I helped her in
all possible ways. She was new to Ahmedabad. I helped her with money, things,
helped her hunting a job, let her stay at my place etc. But, in return she is
badmouthing me at my back. Praveen, even after doing so much for her, I never expected anything from her. But at least, she shouldn’t say anything wrong
about me at my back. I really don’t expect anything from her but she can
atleast talk to me nicely which she is not doing. Despite all good things, I
have done to her, I never expect that she must return me a favour but is she supposed to behave like this? This is extremely painful, you know.” She said in a voice which was
coming out of a broken heart.
I listened to her carefully, tried to console her but there was something where I
could not agree with her at all. Even though I tried to understand her point of
view from different angles but I wasn’t with her on a particular point. The
point was when she was repeatedly saying , “I don’t expect anything from her. I
don’t expect anything from her”. Was she really not expecting anything from her
friend?
Really ?
Turned out, actually she was expecting from her friend,
may be, not a lot but a bit, at least.
It has been told to us several times or we have read this at
several places – One should not
expect anything from others…. well, ideally. But, we, as human beings, we live in a real world, so when
we do some favour to somebody or if we share some kind of relationship with
somebody, we end up expecting from her/him. I don’t know how to name them but
some of these kinds of expectations are:
1. I have done a
favour to ‘that somebody’. So ‘that
somebody’ owes me and I have all the rights on him/her and I can ask to return
my favour whenever I want.
2. ‘That somebody’ must return my favour when I am in need.
3. It’s ok if ‘that
somebody’ doesn’t return my favour but that somebody must remember my favour
always and must be nice to me.
4. ‘That somebody’ should not badmouth me at my back.
5. If ‘that somebody’ cannot do any good to me, he/she
must not do any harm to me.
So, whatever be the case, expectations are always there. May
be the degree is different as exhibited in above five points. But for sure, it will
arise, whatsoever. It is inevitable. Not only this girl, I have heard many people saying the
same thing ‘I don’t expect from him or her'. But the truth is you cannot stop ‘expectation’
from arising in your heart.
So, saying ‘I don’t expect any thing from him/her’ is a
false and futile statement. And I believe it is absolutely fine to expect from
somebody because of the relation or because of any favor you did. We are human
beings after all and ‘To expect is human’. Infact,
I would go to an extent of saying that even an unconditional love such as
love of a mother and her kid also contains plenty of expectations e.g. a mother
expects her kid to grow according to her guidance or atleast she wants that her
kid must treat her right at any age. And yes, there is nothing wrong in it.
Even though mother-kid love is supposed to be the most unconditional but evidently this
love could not keep itself away from the stigma of expectation.
Hence, it is perfectly fine to expect. What is the
problem in it? Why everybody keeps claiming that he/she doesn’t expect from
somebody or from some relation?
Though expectation, at many instances, results in getting
somebody hurt. And when that person gets
hurt repeatedly, then sometimes, another phenomenon comes into play and that is called ‘Apathy’.
Yes, Apathy is that phenomenon which has ability to kill the 'expectation'. When
Apathy takes control, you are not bothered about the other person anymore,
you are not bothered about his/her action or words and then needless to say,
expectation vanishes.
Till the time there is no apathy, you just cannot be free
from expectations. All you can do is that you can try to control the degree of
expectation which will reduce the intensity of pain if expectations are not
met.
