Happy Dussehra ! Hope everyone relaxed today and switched off their phones and office emails :):). Why take a holiday if you continue to check your phone every two minutes ? And no, the world doesn’t end because you missed replying to an email on a holiday.
The reason I didn’t write this blog in the morning is because I was celebrating Dussehra with very close friends. We have known Abhay and Padmaja since 1997 and even when we didn’t speak to each other much for nearly ten years in the middle, nothing has changed between us. Padmaja made the point simply by saying, “I feel at home” … She was at home. We spent hours talking, eating, making coffee and didn’t feel exhausted :).
How did you celebrate the holiday ? Did you sleep in late or go for a movie or eat out or just hang out with friends ? Or did you lovingly gaze into the bezel of your cellphone and “caught up” on all your pending emails :):):). I have had colleagues who would time their emails to go out at midnight and then a couple of hours later and some colleagues that were awake 24/7. They were living upto their bosses expectations perhaps.
Remember my blog on Monday ? You got Stress ?:):). One new comment inspired this blog. One of the readers on LinkedIn asked whether one gets stressed even when they are doing work they care about, but things don’t work out quite the way they want. That’s where the catalyst called “expectations” comes in. You are constantly living upto others expectations or your own and many times these expectations are unrealistic. Our savvy and smart Prime Minister is struggling big time to live upto people’s expectations … Mix goals and ambition and add expectations to the already heady mix and you have a great recipe for stress.
When you find yourself stressed and figure out that it’s because of not being able to live upto others expectations, just tell yourself “it’s ok, it’s impossible to live upto everyone’s expectations.” Try hard, as others expectations do spur you on, but it’s ok to fail. You will learn every time you fail. Don’t miss a few lessons… If nothing else failure teaches you humility. If you are falling short of your own expectations, do recalibrate and lower those expectations. Just move the gun of expectations away, before it kills you. A girl jumped from the rooftop in our apartment complex a few years back … Because she scored a few marks lower than her expectations. More recently, just a few weeks back a young, newly married man, jumped to his death, because his wife allegedly had different expectations from the marriage than his.
Completely avoidable deaths …. And all because the burden of expectations became too much to bear. Parents beware – do not place the burden of academic brilliance and sports brilliance and every other “brilliance” on your child. It’s too much to accomplish. Have the expectation that the child is a good human being and the rest will happen. If he/she doesn’t become a doctor maybe they can become a nurse if they love to serve the ill or learn alternative medicine and continue to be healers.
Bosses at work … Unrealistic expectations create unnecessary stress. Think of this quote by Einstein –
Unrealistic expectations are like these … So lower your expectations where necessary and accomplish what you can. If you fire a gun that’s pointed at your head, you won’t live to accomplish anything – accomplishing lower expectations is better, I think.. Hopefully you do too.
Happy Weekend ! 4 day weekend :):):)
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