It is said that a person who has been sentenced to death lives the most miserable life on earth. The death itself may not be as bitter and painful as the awful time that creeps to him very slowly. Death may be the bad and painful experience of a few moments but when a person realizes that he is going to live for limited and specified number of days, time stops for him and every moment passes like an year and fills his heart and soul with pain and disappointment. It is the reason why a person suffers a lot when he is waiting for something which is uncertain.
It becomes an interesting observation to see a young, energetic but inexperienced young man waiting eagerly for the interview or a response for the first job of his life. Hiring and recruitment of a person in an organization is a lengthy process and usually it takes time from a week to a number of months. But a person who has submitted his CV for any position and is eagerly waiting for a reply from the other side is usually found to be saying so, ‘They are unnecessarily and deliberately delaying it all. Otherwise, how much time would it take if they just go through all the CVs and inform the applicants if they are selected or rejected? They have no idea how much people are in pain by remaining in this state of uncertainty.’
In our relatives, a person was successful to get the citizenship of Canada. Then he slowly called his relatives there, one after the other. He had a brother and when he realized that he would also become the citizen of Canada one day, he left taking any interest in his studies. But when it came to him, the migration rules changed and his case was rejected. The man was much disappointed but his brother promised him to start his case again; no matter how long it takes and how much effort it requires. Time kept passing and estimated time for the arrival of visa kept increasing. From a month it changed into a couple of months and then a year and then many years passed in the situation. The person’s hope and optimism kept dwindling and he was the most disappointed person in the world. He started his day with a hope of any good news and he slept at night to discover something good in the morning.
This situation happens because of tying our hopes with others. Our social setup has linked us close to each other and we can never end our habit of depending on others. It is contrary to Europe where everyone knows that he has to live all on his own and thus no one has any expectation from the other. The trend of expecting from others has increased due to the staggering economic conditions of the region where finding a decent job is very difficult and there are a large number of jobless brothers and sisters who depend on others. Similarly, we hope that other person would do his best to find us a job or do any other work for us.
But the teachings of prophets and saints always advice not to rear expectations and keep hopes from others. In this regard, the best example is given of the world. A person, who has a lot many hopes from the world, suffers a lot. In order to turn a hope or dream into a reality, a person struggles a lot and when this dream is met, another hope, desire or wish replaces it and asks the person to restart the efforts. It is said that when a person’s one desire is finished, there sprout two more desires to replace the first one and in this way, there starts a never ending series of hopes and achievements. It is the reason why, we see that a person may be having all the things but he may be sitting disappointed and sad, thinking about all the desires that he has. On the other hand, a poor beggar, who has nothing to lose and nothing to worry, seems to be the most contented person on the surface of the earth.
In majority of the cases, the expectations we keep from others are not fulfilled and we get disappointed. In some extreme cases, a person has got so much disappointed that he has thought of committing suicide and bringing an end to his life. In the same way, false expectations bring a rift between brothers and friends and the relations no more remain the same.
A person was running a business but due to the widely spread recession, his business was suffering a lot and he was trying hard to make the ends meet. But his actual condition was known to only of his few close friends and relatives. In the same condition, a friend of him entered a business and in the survival stage of the business, he spent all his money and then he needed a large amount of money to save his business. He wrote all these in an impressive detail to his friend and requested him to lend him the money till he got his business established. The rich man got confused with this request of his friend. His conditions were also not so good and at present, he was fully out of any cash and it was also impossible to draw such a large sum of money out of the business. The only way to acquire such a huge sum of money was to sell his house but in this way, he was going to jeopardize the future of his family. He also wrote each and everything in detail to his friend and refused to be of any assistance in this regard. But his friend took them as lame excuses and immediately cut off all the relations with him, declaring him to be selfish and disloyal.
Now, wherever he sits, he starts complaining of his friend, naming him to be a selfish friend. The situation worsened because he expected something from his friend without realizing his actual condition. When our expectations are not met, we should not see the situation from our own glasses and put ourselves in the boot of others and try to realize their limitations and problems.
A person who lived in Europe shared similar things that he experienced with his relatives in Afghanistan. He used to say that, ‘Here, we work day and night to run our families but our relatives send us emails that a latest television has come into the market so we should send them some money for this. They think that, a few hundred dollars would make no difference to us but they don’t know how hard it is to earn these few hundred dollars.’
To sum up the issue, the best solution is to cut down all the hopes and expectations from others and try to manage our problems all from our efforts and possibilities. It is the way that suits the courageous and high-spirited people.
And last but not the least; we should never make false promises to others. While making promises, we need to be absolutely realistic and straight-forward. Our truth may hurt the other person but if we made any false promise, it may hurt him even more in future.