Life - experiences - perception - expectations - Life

As confusing as the title might be, so does the Life becomes many times. Carved by our experiences, it makes us create a perception towards everything, from where arises the expectation, which again makes us go through multiple experiences, both good and bad. It leaves us in this vicious circle, where we make mistakes, learn from them, apply our learnings to beautify the experience, and then mak another mistake...

Before I digress more, The whole idea behind this topic was to re-iterate the obvious,

To not let the others decide how your life turns out, rather take control yourself and mould it the way you want it to be.

Recently in a discussion with a friend, a pretty common scenario came up and I found it worth mentioning here...

We grow up, thinking you have to make it BIG! most of us do...for different reasons: For some, its passion, for some its survival, while for others, its about proving themselves - to fill in the expectations of others, at most times, of the ones we care for. And that too in most cases, our Parent's.

We grow up watching them working hard to provide us the best of everything...from studies to entertainment to all the quality time we spend during our childhood. While many of us forget everything done for us, few consider that it was their duty and other very few, who actually realize it, makes it a point to return the favor, by providing them with everything that they possibly can: from making them proud of being their parents to every materialistic/emotional happiness they can think of. Somewhere in this thought process, we tend to raise the virtual expectations(virtual because, it might not exist many times) from ourselves, where in our brains, we are being expected to rise above the horizon, stay ahead of the people, and make our parents proud. There starts the misery of the situation.

Here, we are trying to fulfill the expectations, which might not really exists. The first answer, as says Marshall Goldsmith, that comes from Parents when asked "What do they want their children to be?" is unanimously 'HAPPY'. Now if in the process of trying to make them happy, if we start rating ourselves down thinking that we are not living up to their expectations, we are not helping the situation in anyway. Rather, we are worsening it, because parents at times might expect a lot from their children, but they would never expect anything from their child at the cost of his happiness. So, if in the process, we are loosing our happiness, we are worsening the situation.

At times its not only your efforts that decide the outcome of the event. A number of factors, ranging from the luck to the attitude of others involved, decide how things are going to end up. You put in a lot of effort, but suppose if in case, you got a worthless creepy evaluator and hence you lose out on appreciation ,while few others, who you know had put in almost same/less effort, takes away the credit, it should hardly bother you. I know its pretty obvious to feel bad, but at such times, the most important part is to keep telling yourself that you have done it to the best of your efforts. Wrong evaluation is a fault at your evaluators end, not yours. And even more important point would be: to always keep in mind that "For people who care for you, incl your parents and all dear ones, it hardly matters how you have been evaluated. To them , you would always remain the same person, regardless you won hte first prize or came in the last spot among the crowd."

For the ones where your relationship depends on your performance appraisal, I would rather suggest to not spare a thought and if possible, totally get rid of such relations. They help in no way and result in creating a useless pressure onto your actions.

The fact that you are cared for shall be enough to fill your actions with seamless confidence, decreasing useless pressure( which is often relative), and thereby making every experience more fulfilling and rewarding.

It seems I lost the track multiple times in between, but i guess i was able to make my point! :)