Thinking about Expectations
We all have expectations from others! Expectations of care, honesty, integrity, sensibility...... from people around us, in reality or in cyberspace. We expect from people who govern us, to be very very careful while deciding about any issue placed before them. Like most Indians expected from the members of present or past governments. We expect them to behave with complete honesty and integrity, without any element of greed, that is we expect them not to be tempted for any personal profit, though the opportunity may lie right before them. We expect all the services we subscribe for the perform perfectly all the time, without causing us any inconvenience, even for a brief time. We expect that we be allowed to lead a perfectly private life, with no one ever caring to know, whether we are engaged in a socially subversive activity.
Who does not have expectations? Oscar Wilde once said:
To expect the unexpected shows a thoroughly modern intellect.
Parents have expectations from their offspring. If they labour hard to earn to be able to afford their education, or desires, then hidden is an expectation that when they will be old, and need help from a young, they will get it, without asking. The young sons and daughters too have expectations from their parents. They expect that the parents must fulfil all their requirements, whether justifiable or not, by whatever means. The attitude has roots in their social circle, their friends. Similarly, a married man has several expectations from his wife, which she may or may not be capable of fulfilling. The result an increasing trend for divorces. A professional, whether a doctor or an engineer, also has increasing expectations, when he witnesses the lifestyles of corporate honchos, he also expects that he will have a swanky car, a beautiful apartment and comfortable holidays in a beautiful place, preferably in a far off foreign land. So has a teacher, or any member of the society. We expect our friends, whether in real life or virtual, like on facebook, to care for our ego, and read, appreciate and comment on whatsoever we share with them. In short, feed our ego.
While at school, some forty five years ago, I had to read a novel entitled Great Expectations. It is a story of a young boy from a modest family, who falls in the trap of a convict escaping a jail, he had great expectations in life, namely to be able to become worthy for a young lady, belonging to a very rich family that employed him.
Lately a political upheaval is in progress in India, governments in a few states of India have been uprooted, democratically, because people have nursed great expectation from the leaders they elected to the government, the parliament. People at large are expecting miracles from these new governments, they are expecting that they will be relieved of corruption that has taken deep roots. But, their expectations apparently have been belied. May be because of the personal aspirations of the elected leaders and their families.
Don't these political functionaries, who have worked hard for many years, have some aspirations to fulfil, (Read my earlier article: Thinking About Aspirations ) whether personal or of their families and friends. If that is the case, can social corruption be ever contained.
Can any society have ever the means to meet all these expectations????
Rakesh Mohan Hallen