THE STORY OF OUR SORROW

Just read this Good-Morning message shared by my FB friend, Ajit Nair, today:

“Half of our sorrows we earn by expecting good things from wrong people;

And other half we earn by detecting wrong things in good people.”

Nothing can be truer than this!

Often, we hear people advising us: “Don’t keep expectations; you will only end up disappointed and in sorrow.”

But, if you start your day with this paradigm – not to expect anything from anyone at anytime and anywhere – let me tell you, we will end up with even more frustration, and despair! It is naive to believe that we can live in this world without keeping any expectations from people around us. It is ignorance.

So, the message I received from Ajit, this morning, had provided the right perspective:

Don’t expect ‘good things’ from ‘wrong people’… Half of your sorrow will end!

Stop digging for ‘wrong things’ in ‘good people’… The other half of your misery will go!

The fact is that we do keep expectations from other people… Many times without bothering to know who are these people: the right people or the wrong ones. If people are good, right ones… we, invariably, do not expect anything from them. Our ‘giving’ act was pure from the heart, with no strings attached. And, such act is a reward in itself. Giving is receiving. Moreover, these people do respond to our goodness… Rarely does our giving act - with these people - goes unacknowledged, unappreciated or unrewarded. 

It is when we do good things to wrong people and keep our expectations from them, yes, it is here that frustration and sorrow set it. True, half of our miseries come out of these failed expectations!

The story of the other half of our tragedy is even more interesting. I call it ‘our obsessive behavior’: Trying to dig out wrong things in good people!

I tell you: this is the short-cut to our own graves… It is guaranteed to bring the doom: misery… the poverty of our soul!

Just imagine: if I should indulge in such a behavior, my mind has to suffer from such chronic insecurity, jealousy, and pettiness. There is no way I will be able to succeed in my misadventure: for, what is good can not be destroyed by what is mean!

  

So, my obsession to find faults 

in good people around me, 

has to bring what it has to: 

the other half of my sorrow!

Thank you Ajit… The morning was really good. Thank you.

GERALD D’CUNHA

Pics.: Raj Dhage Wai