Battlefield Mind!!

Greetings Blog Reader!

Not much seems to have changed in my life since the last time I was here.

-Barrack Obama is Officially allowed to enter the Oval Office as President. That is the good thing.

-Indian economy is also swaying with the World Economic Crisis; however, if I am allowed to opine, I personally think Indian Economy is more or less in the hands of Dr. Singh. That is the expected thing.

-My life is at a standstill. That is the bad thing.

Now, while I am supposed to be collecting moss right now, I am not exactly convinced that is the best thing to do. I mean, who could I possibly sell moss to!!?

Moving on.

For the last few days my mind is glorious battlefield of dual. I am not sure any of the sides is going to win at all - it's just that the thought itself is so...well, itchy. I keep going back to it...again...and again...and again.

Here it goes.

Most of us, at some point of time or the other - expect. We expect things to happen. We expect it to rain. We expect to pass the exam. We expect the train to come on time. We expect to not get stuck in the traffic. We expect to reach office on time. We expect our friends to spend more time with us. We expect our family to support us. We expect to finish that book this weekend. We expect the good samaritian to appear out of nowhere and help us out. We expect friendship. We expect love. We expect respect. We expect applause. We expect rewards. We expect world peace. We expect...expect...and expect.

The list is endless. From the most trifle everyday things to the big chunks of our lives we expect things to happen. More importantly, some of us even expect feelings from others - family, friends, colleagues, etc. All the same time that we are expecting (pun unintended!), we do know that the given expectation may or may not come true. Still, when the expectation does not come true we feel hurt, cheated. Why?

Let's say, we are expecting the train to be on time. Now, while we are expecting, we are mentally aware the train MAY OR MAY NOT appear on time. If the train does appear on time, we are elated. We go through the I-told-you-so-symptom. However, when the train is late by say x minutes, then we feel somewhat angry, irritated. Also, higher the value of x, higher the irritation & anger. In other words, we can say expectation is probability. In most cases a 50-50% chance something is going to happen. If we know by default then why the irritation when the thing fails our expectation?

I guess it's more to do with human nature than the laws of probability or proportion.

Whenever we "expect" something to happen, we are "wishing" that thing to happen. Technically, by the rules of probability it's still a 50-50% deal.

However, wishing is very different from expecting. Expecting is a hard-hearted word. It does not have the softness that wishing does. Expecting does not tug at the strings of your heart the way wishing does. Think about it.

When you think of the word "wish", what comes to your mind? I can't comment on what picture your mind might have drawn for you, but I can truly tell about mine. Wish, for me, is somewhere in dream land...where the "fairy godmother" will grant whatever i have wished for. Voila! Just because i wished it is true. Wish has a heart rendering softness to it - because, wish comes from the depths of your heart. When you expect, it usually comes from some kind of experience - it has something to do with the mind. But, when you wish, it's usually from the bottom of your heart.

All practical people in this world - expect(in the calculated way, of course!).

Dreamers wish.

Only the truly wise know, understand and appreciate the difference.

And yes, in case you wanted to know - morons like me - wish.

Which kind are you???