The Great Expectations !!

I was having a conversation with one of my friends when the topic drifted to the upcoming CAT exam and the usual anxiety which accompanies it.,. The intermittent SIMCAT's( mock CAT exams) scores arent particularly what one can say as encouraging.,. rather they tend to do the opposite.,. pulp your confidence to the barest minimum.,. ;) These exams are like checkpoints for estimating our level of preparedness., A person can get to know which areas he are strong in and in the areas he has to improvise himself. But often what happens is that after each SIMCAT, you become to doubt yourself. You feel as if your preparation isnt enough and that you are getting
worser every exam.


When i shared with a friend who is exceptional in analyzing things, what he had to say was that its because of your level of expectation. We expect things to happen fast. We expect immediate results which if not seen make us a lot unhappy.,. We can apply the same analogy to every other part of our life. May it be career, relationship, every sphere of our life is filled with expectations.,. We expect our peers to be lovable, we expect our society to be good and helpful, we expect complete love from our partner, we expect all happy things from God.

One might ask what is wrong in having expectations, the only catch here is the fact that things turn out to be ideal in very few cases.,. For example in career, though one might expect the company to be good always,give regular promotion etc, it might not be the case always.,. You might miss out your promotion, you might be asked to move into some project which least
interest you. In case of relationships, your partner might have his/her own ambitions and desires, hence expecting him/her to comply with your desires might not be the ideal way.It is in these cases that having expectations hurts and fires back.

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

Edward de Bono

Yes, one less known thing about Expectation is the fact that we are responsible for it. We have been sub-consciously programmed from our childhood, where we are expected to do certain things at certain stages of our life. This starts from the early childhood, from when we are a child, parents expect the child to utter "Mama","Papa" to every other kins name.,. Then you grow up you are expected to excel at your studies.,. Then you are expected to find yourself a good job and then finally get settled.,. This goes on till the end of our life where eventually, every facet of our life is dictated by EXPECTATIONS.

Expectations are the best known stressers of the human society(this is my assumption !!) You have a fear lurking inside you that oh, what if this doesnt happen.,. What if that ends up like this. What if iam not able to live up to my expectations.,. There are many draw-backs due to this, the 2 prominent ones being, 1) You allow others to dictate your life, 2) You get destroyed/disappointed if things dont turn your way.

Yet there is a beautiful face of expectation, ie. Expectation can be a great motivator.,. It can inspire you to come out of your comfort zone, and live to your potential.,. When Tiger Woods,Roger Federer, Sachin Tendulkar and other icons took the field, they are aware of the huge expectations of the people,.. Yet they were able to deliver.,. Ever wondered why ??. The reason why they continued to excel is because they didnt allow their expectation to go overhead.


Let me explain.,. Though the world has a huge expectation from them, they dont expect that from themselves.,. They just believe in their ability and their talent. They focus on what they have to do rather than what they should do. Since their focus is on doing things which they are good at, they by default, excel in what they do. Contrast their attitude with the attitude of the populoi, many people tend to focus on what they should do so that someone praises them. They strive to keep other happy and in process lose their own happiness.,.

All said and done, eventually its what we think and what we focus on that eventually determines what and how we will be., To wrap up,

To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves--there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.

Joan Didion

P.S: Would love to hear your thoughts on Expectations and your remedy for it.
Keep Inspiring !! :)