Gerald D'Cunha

“When the root is bitterness, imagine what the fruit might be.” - Woodrow Kroll W here does our bitterness come from? I think, it comes from disappointments, self-pity, blame, regrets, guilt, hurts, sadness, envy and anger. There is, always, a reason why we feel bitter in life – about situations and people. The only way to do away with this bitterness is to get in touch with the reason – the root cause, the source of our bitterness. Many a time, we are reluctant to get in touch with the root cause of our bitterness. It takes a great deal of honesty and courage to do that – to look in the mirror, straight. We would rather escape! But, by escaping, the bitterness doesn’t go. It stays back to become poison in our soul! I think, what we call ‘healing’ is the process of overcoming bitterness in life – the disappointments, self-pity, blame, regrets, guilt, hurts, sadness, envy and anger. I, also, think, we have been endow...

“K eep no expectations,” the free advice goes, “you won’t be disappointed.” As I said, it is a free advice… You get it from everyone around you, everywhere.  I give it you, you give it to me and they all give it to you and me! All free! Can we really live in this world keeping no expectations? I have tried and I have failed… I don’t know about you. What I know is this: Every act - every gesture - I do towards others, I do keep my expectations while doing it. When my expectations are met, I feel happy… and when they are not met, I feel unhappy. Yes, my disappointments come when people do not thank me enough, compliment me enough, compensate me enough, love and care for me enough… when they do not behave as I expect them to… when they keep doing things which I don’t want them to… when they say things I don’t want to hear… and when they come home when I want to be left alone… and so on… I also know this: becau...

“Expect everything so that nothing comes unexpected.” - Norton Juster T rying to drop my expectations is like a dog trying to catch his own tail…. Funny, frustrating. Even stupid. We do keep expectations from people… very near and dear ones and not so near and dear ones… We keep expectations from our neighbors and authorities… We keep expatiations from strangers and even our enemies… So, whenever I find myself saying, “Let me not keep any expatiations from this person,” what exactly I am saying is: “Look, I have some expatiations from this person… and they are not being met… I am frustrated, disappointed, sad, angry… bitter, negative.” Yes, every time, I am disappointed, frustrated or angry with another person, the cause is my unmet expectations… So, the obvious belief is that, if we drop our expatiations we can remain free from disappointments and frustrations in life. Yesterday, I was at a meeting which was held in a...