How are life expectancy and expectations linked? Don't know, suddenly this idea cropped up in my mind, and I decided to blog about it. All will agree with me that expectations are bad. If you have expectations from anyone, then you will have a sad life; on the contrary if you have none, then you will be pleasantly surprised for every little thing that comes out of it and you never expected them. Is this true or not? How hard is it to live a life without expectations. Well not so much really, little bit of practice is all that it takes - really.
Now when I said life becomes sad if you have expectations, lets see how. We go to temples with the expectation that god will do something for us. Many times we do good deeds with the expectations of earning some good karma("punya"). We work hard in the job with the expectation of a promotion or a raise. We give our kids the best education expecting them to be in a certain way. When they don't turn out to be what we expected of them, we go through dis-appointment. We get disappointed with our kids, parents, bosses, sub-ordinates, friends and most importantly with god. We humans have invented god, so that we can just pump in our demands and get them fulfilled. If they are by some probability, then we slip into some blind faith. If the wishes are not fulfilled, then we resort to all kinds of remedial actions that has no basis behind it.
If our expectations are not met, we all react to it differently and all or most of the emotions linked to it are negative. It may be frustration, disappointment, anger, sadness, depression etc. It is also known that negative emotion impact negatively to your health and overall wellness which may eventually lead to chronic diseases[pubmed]. On the contrary, if you carry out everything that you do, without any expectation and try to do best in what you are doing, you may be pleasantly surprised if something comes out of it. They have an exhilarating effect which is known for all round wellness.
Expectations are also linked to a number of things that does not have a pleasant side effect. If you expect too much from family or friends, they tend to drift away from you. Living without friends and family affects much more negatively than negative emotions.
In India, the competitive exams are a big deal and have wide media coverage. Almost 99% of the time, you will see the toppers will say that they did well, but never expected to top the exams. On the contrary, there will be a lot of aspirants who may have expected to top the list, but never did. So, expectation actually affects the way we perform in our exams also. This is actually revealing for me as I am writing...
Now looks like good health and longevity, success etc are directly linked with expectation - in an inverse way. The more expectations you have, the lesser success, happiness and longevity you will have. This reminds me of Bhagavad Geeta that stresses on "Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshou kada chana" – You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of actions. How true it is, just perform your duties without expectations and you will live a happy, healthy and meaningful life. Have expectations and your life expectancy will go down...
Now when I said life becomes sad if you have expectations, lets see how. We go to temples with the expectation that god will do something for us. Many times we do good deeds with the expectations of earning some good karma("punya"). We work hard in the job with the expectation of a promotion or a raise. We give our kids the best education expecting them to be in a certain way. When they don't turn out to be what we expected of them, we go through dis-appointment. We get disappointed with our kids, parents, bosses, sub-ordinates, friends and most importantly with god. We humans have invented god, so that we can just pump in our demands and get them fulfilled. If they are by some probability, then we slip into some blind faith. If the wishes are not fulfilled, then we resort to all kinds of remedial actions that has no basis behind it.
If our expectations are not met, we all react to it differently and all or most of the emotions linked to it are negative. It may be frustration, disappointment, anger, sadness, depression etc. It is also known that negative emotion impact negatively to your health and overall wellness which may eventually lead to chronic diseases[pubmed]. On the contrary, if you carry out everything that you do, without any expectation and try to do best in what you are doing, you may be pleasantly surprised if something comes out of it. They have an exhilarating effect which is known for all round wellness.
Expectations are also linked to a number of things that does not have a pleasant side effect. If you expect too much from family or friends, they tend to drift away from you. Living without friends and family affects much more negatively than negative emotions.
In India, the competitive exams are a big deal and have wide media coverage. Almost 99% of the time, you will see the toppers will say that they did well, but never expected to top the exams. On the contrary, there will be a lot of aspirants who may have expected to top the list, but never did. So, expectation actually affects the way we perform in our exams also. This is actually revealing for me as I am writing...
Now looks like good health and longevity, success etc are directly linked with expectation - in an inverse way. The more expectations you have, the lesser success, happiness and longevity you will have. This reminds me of Bhagavad Geeta that stresses on "Karmanye Vadhikaraste, Ma phaleshou kada chana" – You have a right to perform your prescribed duty, but you are not entitled to the fruits of actions. How true it is, just perform your duties without expectations and you will live a happy, healthy and meaningful life. Have expectations and your life expectancy will go down...
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