Living Without Expectations

All of us live life, from birth to death, with a lot of hope and expectations. This comes quite naturally to us. We are constantly thinking about achieving or acquiring something, going somewhere, buying something—basically having a desire and expecting its fulfillment. This desire, and the expectation that one day it will get fulfilled, is what keeps many of us going. ‘Hope springs eternal in the human breast’ it has been said, and this is very true for all of us.

But there is one major drawback with this approach. Whenever we have a wish or a desire, either it might get fulfilled or it might not, and that depends on a host of factors like our abilities, talents, timing, luck, cooperation from others, etc. If it gets fulfilled, we are temporarily happy and feel satisfied. But after sometime, the happiness and satisfaction of this wish fulfillment gets dull, gets taken for granted, and we start having some other desire, or ambition. We pursue our dream, fulfill it, and go on to the next assignment. A stage comes where we soon realize the futility of desiring and acquiring, for there is nothing to acquire, after a particular point. Then frustration, boredom and helplessness set in. And even if there are many more things left to acquire, we soon come to know and understand that acquiring those newer things will make us happy only for a short period of time. Once the ‘honeymoon’ period is over, we will be back to our old, unhappy, craving, restless ways.

On the other hand, if a desire remains unfulfilled, it is worse. We keep hoping that we will succeed in whatever we are doing, we keep wishing for success, which never seems to come. This also makes us angry, depressed, and frustrated and heart broken. Therefore, if you see logically, the end result in both these scenarios is very similar. It becomes a case of ‘damned if you do and dammed if you don’t’. The person who is successful in his wish fulfillment is rich and dissatisfied; one who is not successful is poor and dissatisfied. Though there is a difference in their monetary status and social standing, and though their quality of life may be different, in the end, both are basically unhappy and miserable.

Hence the title of this piece—living without expectations. If one were to live life, on a minute to minute basis, without really having too many expectations, and taking life as it comes, then one is not subject to the ups and downs, the happiness followed by the sadness cycles. This is the core teaching of most religious scriptures, whether it is the Bhagwad Geeta or the Bible. The very essence of the Bhagwad Geeta is that one should do what is required to be done—one’s duty, and leave the results of the work done, the outcome, to God. In this way, one enjoys the work without being attached to the results. It is the attachment to the results that causes stress and strain.

 If you want to be happy and contended, you should remain yourself, unaffected by whatever is going on around. In this state of non-expectation, one does what is right, and avoids what is wrong automatically. When all desire is dropped, life’s decisions and actions become easy and straightforward. Conflicts cease, and the mind is at peace. One is very close to enlightenment. But in practice, to achieve this state, is next to impossible, and only a few, like Buddha, or Mahavira, a Mohammed, a Zaratushtra, or Christ or a Krishna have been able to do it. But we should at least know our target, so that we can work towards being there.