No expectations..key to happiness!

“Karm kiyeja, bina fal ki apeskha kiye.”..

The most revered line from the holy Bhagwat Gita- meaning, keep doing your duties/deeds, without expecting anything in return or any sort of rewards. Nice to read and preach; but extremely difficult to put into practice, isn't it?

We are humans with emotions and we have desires and expectations. A child expects to be loved and to be protected, just as we expect our family and friends to stand by us when we need them. We feel cheated when we come across thankless individuals.

The worse is any sort of expectations we attach to our children. While its not wrong to expect your child to eat well, study to get good grades and grow up to be a decent person, but how is it fair to assume that your child is your asset or “Budhape ki Lathi"( a support system while you are aged)?

What if your child drops out of college someday to work on his ambitions? Are you sure your child will take care of you when you are aged? You may be supportive of your child’s decisions, but initially it would be worriesome and painful to even imagine that your child is not living upto your expectations.... All because of 'expectations’.

So why have expectations at the first place?

We, as parents need to work on building our future from the age of 35-40 years itself, orelse we wouldn't realise, when the time has lapsed while we were busy taking care of everyone's needs.

1. Professional independence:

While you may be working full time now, start thinking if you will have the time or the inclinations to continue after a certain age.Are your working full time for contributing to the family income currently or because you love your job? Will you be better off at something else? More often than not, we continue working all our lives to pay for loans and bills!

Also, you cannot expect your parents or nanny to be around your child the whole life;  while you continue working. (Applicable to both parents).

2. Hone your skills:

Do you know your true calling? Realise your true potentials. Look into yourself and understand what you are good at and brace yourself to be the best at it. You could even join a course to enhance your skills, while you have the time now.

3. Build you network:

Connect with the right people in the circle doing well already and know more about what you need to do to be a success. Do your skillset have the potential to make you happy and successful while at home? You will know how to use your skills to built a successful business, (if you wish) which you can run from home when you are aged.

We all at some point in life, would want to work for ourselves, don't we?

4. Take care of your finances:

Do you really need to pickup clothes or furnitures from a mall while the same are available online at a much lesser price? Not advocating online deals, but we certainly need to stop impulse purchases and unplanned expenses. Spend wisely and start investing smartly.

Future is something we don't predict, so why shouldn't  mothers have seperate savings and investments which they can fall back on at the time it's needed?

If you are financially secure, you will expect less from your child in future too.

5. Learn handy jobs:

Our parents needed to learn technology to stay connected, may be we would need to learn something else, while old.

Very often, we find ourselves handicapped without knowing how to drive, stitch or even cooking for that matter(yes dear husbands; culinary skills can be extended beyond chai and Maggi noodles if you really want to learn!).

The more skilled you are at such tasks(which we mostly ignore now), only makes you more secure and less dependent later.

6. Helps avoiding gender discrimination:

While I fulfill most of the duties (that our society expects from a son) towards my parents, like many of you dear lady readers; having expectations from a child is also a reason behind gender based discriminations.

A son is supposedly an asset; someone who will stay with his parents and a daughter, the 'paraya dhan'; has to bought up well to be married off someday. So we deny what is due to daughters by having zero expectations from her and create more pressure on our sons to do well in life. There are households till date; who consider even educating their daughter as a privilege granted to her!

So to conclude, while we are here to love, protect and provide for our kids, it's always better to keep zero expectations as parents. Be Independent, be Happy!