Hi everyone, welcome back. Last week I examined a belief about other people’s expectations and how people just because they are human, try to please other people and as a result try very hard to meet their expectations. This week, on the other hand, I would like to look at ‘expectations’ from your point of view, the reader of this blog and how your individual expectations from other people affect the way you think. So, here is my belief for this week.
Belief: If these other people in my life can learn to behave how I want them to behave, like what I like, dislike what I dislike, agree with what I agree with and disagree with what I disagree with etc. etc., my relationships and my life would be wonderful.
Don’t we all think at times especially when it’s a very close personal relationship or maybe a professional one that only if this other person can understand what it is that I am going through, it will make me feel so much better about myself and my life. Only if my husband/wife can understand how hard I work, I will be validated and I will have a reason to keep doing these boring everyday chores. Only if this boss of mine can appreciate me more, it will make my working in this company/department much less stressful. Only if my parents can really understand what it is that I really want in my life and support me in my endeavors, I will be able to feel good about my accomplishments. Only if this neighbor of mine can stop creating nuisance all the time, I will be very happy living in the home that I so very much love. And the list goes on and on and on.
So, do you see a pattern here? A pattern where we expect other people to behave in a certain way, do things in a certain way, respond to us in certain ways; the way we understand to be right. A pattern where we wait to be happy in our lives today because of all the expectations that we have from everyone around us, even strangers for that matter! Yes, I did just say strangers. Do you ask why? Well, let me give you an example. The part of the world that I live in, it’s sort of considered nice to say hello to strangers and maybe even smile at them when you cross their paths. But so many times you come across people who don’t want to say hello or even smile but that doesn’t necessarily mean they are bad people. However, because we are humans and because we expect this stranger to smile back at us and say hello in response to our hello, our mind tags them as a bad/non-social person because they didn’t respond the way we expected them to respond. So the next time if you see this person, your mind will get so busy trying to figure out if you should be saying hello to them again and be smiling at them again. Hence begins a struggle in your mind over something which is so trivial and does not even matter to you or your life in the bigger scheme of things. And keep in mind that this is just one very tiny example from everyday life.
Let’s consider another example and I think about this one every time I get behind the wheels and begin driving my car. So almost everyone regardless of where we live may have to drive ourselves, our parents, kids etc. all the time or maybe some of the time. And so many times while driving, we may come across that one person who either tailgates us to make us get out of their way or you may tailgate someone so that they can get out of your way or someone cuts you off while driving at 70 miles per hour. So, my point is, when this happens to you, have you noticed how your mind goes into overdrive as well :). How even though you can’t control how this other person drives their car, yet, your mind gets so busy trying to come up with things to say to this ‘jerk’ of a person who according to you doesn’t even know how to drive a car. Additionally, for some people this event if it happens on their way to work in the morning, may just destroy their entire day!! And if that person is you, whose entire day could get affected by this single event, have you ever thought that you can’t change people and if you can’t change them, you are not going to gain anything by letting your mind go into overdrive because truthfully at the end of the day there must be someone else out there who may think the exact same thing about you and your driving too!
So, the shift here is to accept not just situations that show up in your life but also to accept people exactly the way they are. However, in doing that I am in no way suggesting that you let people walk all over you and mistreat you. What I am suggesting is that you choose to let go of the small stuff that does not even matter in the bigger picture of life. You choose peace for your own self over your ego which so very much wants to stay in that overdrive mode that I just talked about. You choose being happy regardless of how everyone else around you behaves. And honestly, everyone behaves the way they behave because that’s what they know to do best in that moment.
A few years ago I read the book “The Four Agreements” and one of the agreements in that book is “Don’t take anything personally”. This statement is so profound and even if you have just begun to understand and practice what it actually means it can really transform your life. To give you an example, since a lot of us work for private or public companies all over the world, how it could apply in professional sense is that as an employee of that company you can do the best possible job each day regardless of how your colleagues behave, your superiors behave or even your own boss behaves. And at the very end of the day, that’s all that really matters. And all these people behave the way they behave because of their own beliefs and thinking. It has nothing to do with you. But because you are human you assume that it has everything to do with you. More on this next time. However, if you get bogged down throughout your day thinking about who did this or who didn’t do that, who said this or who didn’t say that, chances are you will not be able to do your best and your performance will take a hit. The most important takeaway for me personally when I came across this profound statement and tried to implement it in my own life is that it all boils down to YOU. And this is how it literally boils down – you first need to have a very powerful intention in your heart to live a peaceful life and not to take things personally. Once you have set that intention, you need to make a decision every single time you are faced with this situation, which I honestly think happens so very often in our daily lives. You will start noticing these situations once you have set your intention. And then you practice. And by practice what I mean is just noticing the thoughts and feelings come up as a result of a situation and you acknowledge them and let them go by reminding yourself that its nothing personal and you choose to live a more peaceful life.
And as always, feel free to leave a comment, if you feel like leaving one. And until next Friday, live life 🙂
