Why Others Can't Fulfill Your Expectations
Acharya Prashant: You make some Tom, Dick, Harry the center of your universe and, accordingly, you raise expectations from that person. Is that person, first of all, capable of and worthy of fulfilling your expectations? Obviously, he is not. He is just one general fellow like everybody else, an average human being. He will do what all average human beings do. And when his acts and transgressions come to light then you put up such a sorry face, "Oh see, my trust has not been honored."
You trust an elephant to fly and instead of flying it gives you five kilograms of elephant shit. You are looking upwards; soon it would be flying. The thing raises its tail. You feel it is a takeoff signal, and soon all the ambrosia from the heavens descends upon you, and then you come running to Acharya Ji. But your darling was an elephant. What else could he have done?
What's worse? There is something within you that still pulls you to the elephant. What is even worse is that you not only are pulled towards the elephant, you still secretly hope that the elephant will fly. The elephant is not to be blamed. Blame that within you which gets attracted to all kinds of animals. Whenever you get cheated in love, don't blame anybody else. Ask yourself, did you not have anything better to do with your life that you went and clung to a person? Eight years of life! And if I recall, the questioner is a professor, right? Students, I am thinking of them.
Eight years of your life and golden years of your life. These are the years when you are at your youthful prime. You dedicated these years to some general moron who was having affairs all over the city. Only a few have been uncovered. I know him, he has five more. Five more in which he succeeded, 25 more in which he got beaten up. That's the way everyone is. I don't need to know particular personal details. That's the way each one of us is. Those are the ways of what we call as the common man. The general human being, I ask you, is he worth being devoted to? Then why do you pick some man, some woman, and put him on some high pedestal which he is not worthy of? Why do you do that? Why do you do that? You know the reasons, right? Some loneliness, some hormonal upsurge, some cultural predisposition, some peer pressure, some cultural norm, movies, a lot of movies. So we feel that it is very, very necessary to have the central spot in our life occupied by a person.
The movies tell us that unless there is a special person in your life, you are really missing out on something big and you are seized by FOMO. What is FOMO? Fear of missing out. "Oh my god! Everybody has that. I am the only one left behind. I must also have a partner, a girlfriend, a boyfriend, a husband, a wife, something. Hey, go grab somebody." So you go out and grab some Johnny next door. He was busy washing his sandals, and you went up to him and threw your most seductive smile and then he too was infected by FOMO. He said, "Now that I have the opportunity, why shouldn't I capitalize?" And thus, came about the relationship. And you call it a holy bond made in heaven. Why do we do that?
Eight years of life. Come on, think of it! Eight years of life you are spending behind some unworthy person. And let me assure you most persons are just unworthy, so it's always better and always safer to not spend your life on persons. If you have to invest your hours, your months, your years, invest them in a cause. The cause could be your own development, or general development, social welfare, whatever, but let it be a cause, not a person. Let the cause occupy you fully. Don't just become somebody's washbasin. He keeps spitting, and you keep collecting. And very soon you clean yourself up just to receive more of the same stuff. Applies to both men and women, applies to all people young and old, and especially applies to those who are gripped with loneliness and FOMO syndrome.
There can be nothing worse than being saddled with, being tied to, being chained to some general unworthy person in life. That's the worst hell you can create for yourself. Don't do that. If life is benevolent enough to offer you a great, great companion, nothing like it. But if you cannot have a great companion, live all by yourself. Your solitary existence is 200 times better than being coupled with a mischief-maker.
And remember, hurt comes from a broken expectation. You expect so much from the other basically because you have not internally achieved what you should have principally achieved for yourself all by yourself. You did not do what you should have done for yourself; therefore, you now expect somebody else to do good things for you. The responsibility to bring goodness to your life rests primarily upon you, not upon somebody else.
To bring somebody to life and then expect that somebody to bring richness and goodness to your life is not wise. As an adult, it is your own responsibility to fill up your life with beauty, with wellness, with goodness. And if you are not doing it, why and how must someone else do it for you? But you expect that from the other person. The expectations will never be fulfilled, and you will be hurt. Why do you want to invite so much sorrow?
