Expecting Perfection

Are we selfish or compassionate?

If we think of the above-mentioned question most of us will answer that we are compassionate. Let’s try to think of our parents are they selfish or do take care of us only on the basis of compassion. Selfish means due to self-interest while compassion is due to the interest of others.

I think we all are self-driven to some extent. Why do I think so?

Think when we enter the world from the beginning we start forming images of our nature or ourselves. Right now if I ask you to define yourself most of you will say I am like this, I am like that, I am an extrovert or introvert, I like to party, I am a humorous person, etc.

Your definition of yourself would not stop here, you have expanded your definition of yourself to others also. Like My dad is like this, My Mother is sweet kind-hearted, My family is like this.

The scope of your definition of yourself would soon expand to outside to your friends, to outsiders. Like My friends are like that, I like only extrovert people, I like only straightforward people, I hate liars, etc.

Soon you have divided the world into two with persons you like and don’t like. People even have divided for your future. Now point comes when we face opposites or people whom we don’t like, we already have a bias for them.

Why does this happen? It is because of our innate selfish desire for our world to be like we want, not accepting the way it is. We or everyone has expectations first for themselves and even among the people around them.

Expecting Perfection

For people who are not married. Imagine how would you want your spouse to be?

        Pause and think

(If you pause and think you will already have a definition of the bride or groom of your choice) If you think more you may have defined him or her completely. Now, what happens, in reality, if you don’t find him or her of your choice, there are a lot of fights as you find reality to be different from what you had thought off.

For those who are married and have kids. Imagine how would you want your son-in-law or daughter-in-law to be?

Again you may have defined them perfectly as per your definition.

Think of children, parents define their children and even boast about them among their friends. “Like mera beta/beti to aisa/aise hai.” Now, lets take a hypothetical example.

Think you are a parent of a kid. You constantly boast about him in the public.

One fine day you are taking walk near the seashore and you find your son sitting angrily on the beach. You go to him to ask about the problem, but he abuses you. You start scolding him and say “Aaj yehi din dekhne ke liye bada kiya tha tuje?”

Now let’s modify this situation a bit, instead of you walking alone you are walking among two more friends. Your son again abuses you. You start scolding him and say “ Aaj yehi din dekhne ke liye bada kiya tha tuje, Aggar gaali hi deni thi to kum se kum mere doston ki to sharam ki hoti (If you wanted to abuse me at least you should have thought about my friends)”

The point is there is no difference in your son abusing you alone or among a group of friends, but the pain would definitely be more second time. This is because you may have sought expectations from him or may have created an image of him before even when he was born.

You can see this among you expecting the same from your parents, friends, kids, or anyone whom you may have dealt with.

Your definition of right or wrong (Perfect individual) is your definition, it is not the definition of nature. Even your definition of yourself is your definition of yourself, not natures.

The wise man: Nice story, but all of this happens due to innate misunderstanding in humans (Including you Mr. Writer of this article) that we can control our outcomes. All we can do is put our efforts and accept whatever outcomes nature gives us. Whatever be the outcome accepting it is the way to move forward. Once we accept then only we think otherwise we are always playing the blame game.