Where is my Life?

Things have not gone the way I wanted or imagined. Maybe a lot of people feel that way. But now that I have lived more than half my life, I can look back and think of what I have and what I could have had…and of course what I really wanted!

My first thought is always that I never thought I would be alone at this point in my life. I am and always will be a romantic and believe that there is a someone for everyone. But where is mine someone? All my life I have not even met anyone that I would want to be with. So what happened? Where did I miss my chance? Did I even have a chance to begin with? I will never know the answers to those questions.  I know I am still a romantic and always hope for the best.

I never thought I would be working this much! Of course not! I was supposed to be married and have someone else take care of me. I would have worked but given it up when I had children.  But none of that happened, so here I am working my behind off without any end in sight.

I never really wanted to have my own children because I believed in adoption. I also had no real desire to be a parent (have my own kids or adopted).  But according to the norms of life it was something that was going to happen …it happens to everyone – right? I took this for granted so much that I never thought it would not happen to me. I saw my friends and cousins, get educated and get married and having kids. Some were still working while some quit after kids. And that is how I thought my life would turn out to be. Well…destiny had other plans for me. For once my desire to never be a parent turned out to be granted to me.  There were some points in my life where I would really have a strong need to be a mother.  But now with years that has passed and I have no desire to be a mother anymore. 

I knew I would be working – for how long I did not know.  But what I did not anticipate was how challenging each work-place would be.  I always believe that we live life to improve ourselves to make us a better person and work towards a better life. That is how I wanted my work to be too. But it seems that I am only going downhill in life. There is no improvement in working conditions and my colleagues are getting worse to deal with.  Every place I have worked there has been that one challenging person in the department who has felt threatened by me. Why? I am such a low key person.  I like achieving goals, but I don’t take them away from anyone. I only do what other people don’t want to do, yet I have still be ostracized because of that. All of these nemesis have been women. Most of my sounding boards and supporters have been male colleagues. I was lucky to have them or I would have thought I was going crazy! This downhill work-place issue seems to be a never ending process. WHY? If destiny had decided that I was not going to have a home life why not give me a satisfying professional life?

I never thought I would be so socially isolated.  I have always had many friends. I enjoy their company and cannot imagine not socializing – even if it is for a short while. I have had all kinds of friends. Lately I am realizing that all my friends have turned into “phone” friends.  Most of my friends from other cities have become my true friends while where I live – West Palm Beach – does not have the kind of people I can socialize with.  WHY? Again – destiny!

I go through life sometimes thinking that I am living someone else’s life.  How can this be my life? There is no love, no happiness, no family, no friends, no professional satisfaction. there is nothing in my life that I thought I would have.  There is absolutely nothing in my life that gives me happiness. I just feel like an ant – just going out there, getting food and coming back.  There is not one thing that inspires me to keep going. I am just sitting on a Ferris wheel going round and round and round… and sometimes not even that – my situation has not stayed the same, it has only worsened.

I keep thinking next year will be different and my quality of life will improve.  Things do change but for me ... not for the better…..I am waiting……

Expectations in Life

Our expectations from other people and their expectations from us are the cause of most emotional upheavals in our lives. All of us expect certain things from certain people and if those expectations keep on meeting then we take them for granted.  But if those expectations are not met then we will always blame the other person; not ourselves.

In Bhagvat Geeta, Krishna tells us to just do our work and deeds (karm) as we are supposed to and not expect anything in result or think about the outcome of those deeds.

Well....this is one of the hardest things to do.

Our whole life is motivated by having goals in life and meeting them. When we fulfill our goals we feel a sense of accomplishment and the motivation to go on further to the next goal. If we don't meet our goals then we feel like a failure and it takes a lot of effort to get up and try again or go on to another goal.

Expectations are fundamental to our being. As soon as you perform an act, there is some expectation of result. It can be as simple as when I am thirsty and I drink water, my thirst should be quenched (that was the goal).  When I go to teach my students, I expect them to learn and do well on their exams.  It is tough for me to accept that there will be no result from my hard work. Even a mother, who is expected to have selfless love for her children, expects them to take care of her in her old age. 

Same goes for all people in our lives. We expect something in return from people because they are sensible and should know that one should always give back if you have received something. We don't even excuse strangers! We expect even strangers to be kind to us because obviously why would they be rude to us? They don't even know us! So if someone does not hold open the door for us after going through it, we think - how rude!

As part of my happiness training I am also learning to let go of this "expectation". It has been hard to do, but I am teaching myself to let go. As time is passing by I am gaining a lot of relief and a general feeling of lightness. There is no weight on me of emotions that used to weigh me down because I am waiting for someone to do something for me.

So how am I doing this -  expecting less from others and meeting other people's expectations?

The first thing I tell myself is everyone is born with their destiny - as am I. So I have to keep doing what I am supposed to do and let the other person do what they do. I cannot control their actions. I have to believe that there is a higher power somewhere keeping an account of all this (as said in Bhagvat Geeta).  There is also an English saying, "what goes around comes around", which most people think happens in this life, but Hindus believe happens over multiple lives (reincarnation).

Doing the "right thing" is not always easy, we make the best decisions given our circumstances, our values and our intelligence. Keeping that thought in mind, I keep doing what my heart tells me to do (and my heart is usually right). I don't have many regrets in life. I am certain I have hurt people during my life but I can only hope they have moved on in their lives.

The harder part is when someone expects something of me and I am not able to fulfill that. I feel bad when I find out that I was supposed to do something and I did not do it.  Most times people don't really tell what they are expecting of me, they think that I should just know.  I am very careful in what I do and how I behave but I am certainly not a mind reader. Being able to fulfill others' expectations is part of what is called emotional quotient. Higher EQ scoring people are more self aware, have more empathy and tend to manage their situations well. All this leads to living a more emotionally fulfilled life. These days it is considered better to have a higher EQ than IQ.

I will have to do more study in Psychology to know if we are born with certain EQ and IQ or it changes over time. From what I have seen in people is that some things never change, but the educator in me says that EQ can be improved by our experiences and by training ourselves to observe more. But then again, many things never change.....

So the part about meeting other people's expectations has to do with high EQ. Higher EQ people will know what to say (or not), when to say and what to do (or not) in a given situation.  That is why a number of the older generation people who never had any formal education, were still "wise" because they knew what to do and when to do it - that was their high emotional quotient. (Click here to take a simple - about 15 questions - quiz to see how you do on your EQ). I will not tell you whether I scored high or not :-)

Sometimes we are just not able to meet other people's expectations because their expectations will never end. Its just one thing after another and another.....At that point I just have to say, "Enough", I am done with this now. I have, in my own ways, found a way to get around these people otherwise they will completely drain me of everything I have.

With self education and patience we can all coexist happily for the short time that we are on earth.

I have not written much about taking people for granted....that will be another blog.