True Love Understood

If we carefully understand, we will notice that the over-hyped emotion called love is a fragile collection of feelings such as expectations, imaginations etc. The entire love game we have believed in for years of our life hasn’t grown up to be about selflessness or dedication but about desires, expectations, sex and other objects.

Firstly, love these days has been based upon for our expectations from others. Our world consists of two things i.e. the real physical world and the imaginary world. What happens between two people i.e. face to face or telephonic interaction is the real physical world. It is the world where two people communicate or express their emotions to each other. Things are clear between them because each one is vocal or at least drops hints for others to pick up and complete. The world actually only operates in the real physical world and not the imaginary world which is unique to everyone.

The imaginary world is where we build our large castles, there is a prince and a princess, a villain or vamp; there are hearts, rainbows, chariots and wealth; with everything in place and is according to our customization. But the bitter reality is that, when the real physical world and imaginary world are combined, we build expectations. Thus, love becomes interaction about which the other person is aware as well as expectations about which the other person is unaware. This person has no idea about what we expect from them and we blame them for not loving us anymore. We say they have changed whereas it is our horizons of expectations that have germinated and expanded at a pace that only we know. When our ‘imagined’ expectations are not completed we feel hurt; feel unloved and blame love for the pains it brings with itself.

Secondly, love has been perceived to be not about selflessness but being dependent. Our dependence is to make others dance to our tunes for us to love or accept them. We all have choices, don’t we? Life gives a thousand chances to us to change and accept others before it takes them away.  Parents ridicule and hate their child for not choosing a particular course or stream which they think is best for their children. Thus, their love is dependent on their child’s willingness and ability to fulfill their wish rather expectation. Parents who expect their children to outperform; do not let them take their own decisions end up losing their children’s trust and thus children lose trust in their parents and themselves.

Wives hate their husbands if they do not adhere to their desires, wants and needs. Husbands hate their wives for exercising excessive control over them. When wives overdo care or control, husbands crave for freedom and thus, infidelity comes into picture. Children blame their parents for the luxuries, parents can’t afford for them.

Love has become about not accepting people freely. Why don’t we accept others as they are, if we really love them? It is because we expect others to weave their nest and lives in and around our wishes, desires and expectations. We want to tailor, customize and fit people’s choices, appearances etc in our designer boutique of expectations in the name of their welfare. Is that really our love for them?

Why do people who make different or say exemplary choices suffer with loneliness? Just because they stand up for their expectations of themselves and want to give life a direction of their own rather than following a direction of expectations designed by someone else. They are not attached to someone’s view, desires or choices for them.

Thirdly, we suppose love makes us sacrifice. But, what is love if it makes us sacrifice for other’s temporary happiness? What is the point of giving up a cherished career for a romantic relation which exists today but may not last for a lifetime? We always want others to adjust around us; giving up their career plans, movement plans, life paths, spiritual journeys, investment plans etc but are we willing to change according to other’s needs without feeling any discomfort? How fluid are we to adjust that we expect fluidity from others? We all are rigid in our own molds of definitions, beliefs and attitudes towards everything.

Love is about letting the other person know what you want from them freely and then giving them a choice whether to do it or not. Love is not about expecting but accepting the other person with their flaws, choices, weaknesses and mistakes without having a sense of greatness, pride or favor within. 

Love is not about forcing another person but about not expecting them to perform as you wish. Love is about leaving others free and untied. Love exists when one gives up something at their will, without having to express the pain or discomfort of giving up.

That is love for you!

Equation of FAILURE

Failure is the gap between Expectations & Achievements

For ages we have been taught to build benchmarks and goals in our life. These goals range from returns on our investments, children’s academic or co-curricular performances; never-ending support and love from relationships or objectives and ambitions such as increased wealth or happiness. All these standards that we define are our expectations coming out of our actions, efforts or instructions, from ourselves or from others in the presence of internal and external stimuli that are controllable and uncontrollable. These benchmarks and standards are nurtured and often poisoned with attachment and other emotions.

Once we define our goals, we strive towards attainment for the sake of our satisfaction. For instance, parents motivate, teach, monitor and instruct their children to study and score well in examinations; investments and share prices are tracked to avail best selling prices or premiums; relations are built by immense care, affection, attention, value, feelings and efforts over time to attain a certain status as promising or not promising etc; we people work upon ourselves with goals like bank balance targets, personality development, performance in meetings, level of charisma or confidence cultivation etc. These all form our expectations that are constructed in the presence of controllable as well as uncontrollable factors. Therefore, our default equation becomes:

Thus, FAILURE = EXPECTATIONS - ACHIEVEMENTS

Before we go on to decoding the equation, let us make a few postulates or assumptions.
1.Nothing in the process of life is constant or permanent.
2.Not everything is controllable.
3.Attachment is never positive.
4.All positives are absorbed by the Supreme in the process.
5.Emotions are both positive and negative.
6.Conditions lead to disappointment.

Now, when we all really want to achieve a particular goal, we attach energy, conditional or unconditional attachment for accomplishment. We also add emotions to targets and thus the equation of expectations becomes:

EXPECTATION= TARGET + EMOTIONS (Positive & Negative) + ATTACHMENT

Coming to the achievement aspect, we invest a lot of hope, effort, energy and sincerity.  Thus the achievement or result becomes:

ACHIEVEMENT= HOPE + EFFORT + ENERGY + SINCERITY

When absent, hope becomes hopelessness; effort becomes laziness; energy is conserved and sincerity is replaced by insincerity. Sincerity means dedication to the target whether Conditional or unconditional.

Now subtracting ACHIEVEMENT from EXPECTATION;

E - A = TARGET + EMOTIONS + ATTACHMENT – (HOPE + EFFORT + ENERGY + SINCERITY)

The result comes in the following manner:

1.To fulfill targets, effort and energy get used up to give some achievement because there is zero achievement without efforts and energy. 

2.Since, emotions are positive as well as negative and positive emotions are absorbed in the process, hope and sincerity get absorbed and what remains are negative emotions.

3.The negative emotions that remain like sediments are residue insincerity, disappointment, sorrow and attachment from expectations that combine together to form a misery house called failure.

Further, we can take failure in two different ways, positively or negatively. If we kick off negativity in the form of attachment and replace it with love for our work, child, self or money; we are in for positive dealing with failures. But, if we take failures to ego and then perform sourcing from a negative outcome towards a positive outcome, our achievement may not be iterated over time and be a one-time wonder. Thus we must take responsibility for failure and ensure that the components of our main equations are more positive than negative.

On a deeper note, our life depends a lot on how we deal with failures. Some people are persistent while some are escapists who end up failing consistently and end up trying in the long run leaving no space for success. Thus, to bring success, expectations must be replaced with targets, sincerity and hope but not attachment or emotions. Thus, 

SUCCESS= TARGETS + HOPE + SINCERITY + ENERGY + EFFORT

Now, hope and sincerity will be absorbed in the process and targets will be achieved with energy and effort. Also, success will be achieved only when targets are less or equivalent to energy and effort. If targets are greater than energy and effort failure will arise again!