Drop all disappointments. Live free!

Live Life without regrets, without disappointments. When you live this way, you will see how magical and beautiful your Life is.

A friend invited me for a drink a few days ago. Along with him, at the bar, was his boss, Hemant. After the introductions were made, Hemant was keen to know what my Book, ‘Fall Like A Rose Petal – A father’s lessons on how to be happy and content without money’ (Westland, August 2014), was all about. So, I gave him a background and said that my Book’s message was really about accepting Life for what it is and learning to be happy despite the circumstances.

Hemant heard me out. He looked away for a while as we three sat silently at the table. He then picked up his glass, drank from it, leaned forward and asked me, “What is your biggest disappointment?”

I replied, instantaneously: “I have no disappointments.”

“But how can that be,” protested Hemant, “when you are in such a terrible financial state, when you have no money to cover even your living expenses, when you owe so much to so many people. How can you say you are not disappointed with Life?”

I smiled, and explained my perspective to Hemant and my friend. It is not that I had not felt disappointed before. It is not as though I don’t feel disappointed when our efforts to put our business back on track fail every single time that we try. But you learn, I told them, to not carry a disappointment in you when you realize its futility. What is a disappointment? Simple – an unfulfilled expectation is a disappointment. A lost opportunity is a disappointment. But Life does not bother whether you have an expectation or not. If you have an expectation from Life, and it goes unfulfilled, it is your problem. Life just goes on. Similarly, you got an opportunity, and if you blew it, it’s your problem. Life gave you that opportunity, you did not make use of it. Who is to blame? And what is the point in holding on to the blame, the guilt, the disappointment – the lost moment, the lost opportunity is never going to come back. So, why feel disappointed? In my case, there’s a lot of scope for disappointment – I need not have taken some business decisions that led to our Firm’s bankruptcy and to my family being pushed to the brink of penury; I ought to have saved money for our children’s future, when our business was doing very well, and when my wife used to implore me to do so. That time’s gone. Those questionable decisions were made. The opportunities were lost. Events happened and we are in the state we are in. What has happened is irreversible. What’s the point in being disappointed now about whatever has happened in the past?

Understanding and avoiding disappointments helps in any context in Life. A disappointment always brings grief and depression along with it. Together they make a debilitating cocktail of emotions that can hold you hostage forever. Instead of being a slave to these emotions, be free. Learn from your mistakes, your choices, your decisions and let go of all disappointments and guilt. Forgive yourself for what you did. Forgive others for what they have done. When you do this, you will feel phenomenally peaceful. When you anchor in this inner peace, you will experience the beauty and magic of each moment.

Accept people for who they are – don’t judge them for what they say!

Change the way you look at people and Life. Fundamentally, it is NOT necessary that all people should understand you.

Don’t expect people to understand you, appreciate you or accept you. Chances are they won’t. And know that it is perfectly fine for them to be that way. A large part of our emotional stress comes when we crave for understanding, appreciation and acceptance. When we offer an opinion or perspective, at home, at work, wherever, we believe it to be a given that our point of view must be understood. In fact, we demand it. We also expect it and feel good when people appreciate our efforts__from something as immaterial as plain praise to a sense of gratitude that people display for actions we may have taken in their interest. And, of course, everyone wants to be recognized and treated with respect and dignity__a social acceptance of sorts__by everyone else. When these expectations are not met, we feel let down. We grieve. And we carry the heavy burden of a certain longing, a sorrow, of a misplaced craving.

There’s a way to set down this burden. Approach people with the awareness that just as you are entitled to your opinion, others are too. Second, have NO expectations from people. You do your part in a relationship well and live with that satisfaction. Don’t expect appreciation or acceptance. Simple. This attitude helps in keeping everyday living uncomplicated and peaceful. Because peace in daily Life is the biggest casualty in the wake of such expectation.

There’s a story from the Life of Adi Sankara (788 CE ~ 820 CE) that I remember. Adi Sankara was always clad in a loin cloth or a dhoti at best. One day a few urchins on the street that he was passing through, who did not know who he was, pelted stones at him and chided him for being “poor” and “robe-less”. Adi Sankara’s disciples were angry and set out to admonish the young boys on the street. But Sankara stopped them and asked them to carry on. One of the disciples was furious that his Master be abused like this and secondly he simply could not comprehend why his Master advocated restraint when all that the boys needed was a sound thrashing. So he asked his Master to explain why he choose to ignore the barbs and the stones. Sankara replied: “To pelt stones at anyone and call people names is the privilege of those young boys and they have exercised it. To accept their stones and barbs or not is our privilege. I have exercised our right not to accept that privilege by choosing not to react and to simply move on!”

Beautiful isn’t it? If we can cultivate this attitude and embed it in the way we approach everyday Life, our inner peace will never get disturbed. This attitude also comes in handy when people accuse you of being hypocritical. I am sometimes asked if I ‘really practice all that I preach’? And at some other times I am told that what ‘I preach’ is NOT ‘applicable in practical everyday Life’. I don’t react. I simply smile and move on. Because I have learnt to have no expectations of understanding, appreciation and acceptance from people. Also, in reality, what I do here, through my daily posts, is to share my learnings from my experiments and experiences with everyday living. I don’t preach. I share in the belief that what worked for me, may help validate someone else’s experience or clarify a point of view in them or, if they choose to disagree with my view, will at least help them be clear about what they don’t want to or must not do in Life! So, what’s the point countering a charge of hypocrisy? People believe people are hypocritical because they don’t believe people in the first place. This is particularly true when people are being judgmental and call someone a hypocrite without wanting to know the full story. And that brings us back to the subject of understanding – or the lack of it in everyday Life! So, the best way to live in peace is to appreciate and accept people for who they are – than for what they say – and to not expect anything from anyone.