Expectations can kill you.

When you are in school, in India, they (parents and other elder folk) ask you to study well for your tenth board exams so life becomes easy. You put in your best, study well and score well, expecting life to become easy. But no, it doesn't. It gets tougher. If you do well, there are expectations. You are supposed to do even better. If you don’t, you are goaded and streamlined so that you near the ‘doing well’ line. Then you turn seventeen and bang! You are thrown into the twelfth board examinations sea, with no life-guard or a swimming jacket. They tell you again, that you need to perform well for you to get into a great college, ‘so that your life gets set’. You do that, and you get into an amazing college. What next?

You need to prove to your parents, your other elder folk and to your neighbours that you are comfortably ‘set’ in college. Then they tell you to do well in college, so you get the job of your choice, i.e, ‘get set’.

All right. Box checked. You get a good job.

You think you are ‘set’. But no, that is where the problems begin. You are expected to be more responsible, you are expected to start liking what you do and then you are also expected to not quit your job on a whim, because come on, you've just ‘got set’, right?

First of all, ‘getting set’, is perceptive, all right!? Anyway, what do you do?

You still run around. You chase promotions, you look at dates in terms of deadlines, you make travel plans based on the schedule of your company’s next project, you work on weekends, you count every penny before you spend, you try to impress your neighbours by buying a new car and you are always and forever accountable to your superiors.

And then, you crib.

You crib because you do not have the time, you crib because you do not want to run around, you crib because you want to save, you crib because you want to spend time with family, you crib because someone else got the promotion you deserved and you crib because you are not doing what you want to do, ultimately.

That is when you realise that life is a bloody rat race. You are caught in this vicious cycle that makes you think you are competing with others and are going to win the race. Unfortunately, you are just running in circles, trying to tackle one problem after the other. There is no end to this.

But, there is a solution to this. Nip it, nip things in the bud. Stop conforming to society’s poor standards of expectations. Excel, but excel in doing what you love the most. Focus on doing what you really want to do instead of satisfying others around you. Chop the expectation creeper, climb the happiness ladder. Ultimately, it is one life. It is your life. Your 88-year old grandmother will not be able to live it for you even if she wants to.

Do not let expectations kill you. Survive it.

*End of speech*