Not Equal But Opposite Reaction
Expecting someone to be good to you because you were good to them is like expecting the lion to not eat you because you did not eat it.
I have grown up listening to my elders say the Hindi saying, “Neki kar dariya me daal”, which translates to “Be discreet (private) with your kindness”.
I have heard it innumerable times and have found it one of the most difficult aphorisms to live by due to obvious reasons. No matter how much you are asked to not expect from people, a part of you still does that but human relations aren’t business deals, right? You cannot claim to someone that hey, I was nice to you on such and such occasion, on such and such days, so you have to treat me the same way. It doesn’t and shouldn’t work that way. The ones who expect helpfulness in return for their helpfulness or caring nature in return for their caring attitude, or love in return for their love for someone are only wasting their times. Paulo Coelho (one of my favourite human beings to have taken birth on our planet) says in one of his books, “Anyone who loves in the expectation of being loved in return is wasting their time.” I couldn’t agree more.
However, when we are amiable and helpful to someone, it is not always their helpfulness that we expect back. Some of us are expecting at least a sense of gratitude or a thank you, or a gesture that makes us warm and believe that our efforts are being acknowledged, to say the least. Most people these days however, find that even taxing. A thank you has become underrated. A hug even more so. I wonder what has made people so overwhelmed with coldness that they cannot mumble the words thank you to anyone, let alone say it out loud?
The general argument given by ungrateful people these days is that, a mere ‘thank you’ seems to be a formality and that even when they feel grateful they do not want to be so mawkish as to get into the formality of saying a thank you. Fair enough, but that is not the exact point here. The point isn’t whether they say the words ‘thank you’ or send long messages of gratitude. The question is are such people doing anything to express gratitude? The answer sadly is a resounding no. A Hindi movie had a famous dialogue that said, “The rules of friendship say we must neither say thank you nor sorry to our friends.” Just like I do with most movies, I disagree. We must say sorry as well as thank you to our close associates as much as to acquaintances, even more so if you ask me. If you hurt someone close to you, you must definitely say sorry. If they do something for you, a thank you won’t kill you or them. Maybe you may not say a thank you every time they do something for you, but at least expressing gratitude through your gestures once in a while won’t hurt anyone right?
I have actually witnessed a night where I heard a son beating up his father in the middle of the night, and this still stands as the most disturbing thing to have witnessed in my entire life. I was a sixteen-year-old then, wondering in night, did the son become so ungrateful towards his father that he forgot all the sacrifices the latter must have made for him in his entire course of life? That I would call was the height of ungratefulness.
I do not imply that most of us are as demonic like the son I mentioned, but I mean that to some extent we have all become ungrateful and it is sad. People say we must not have expectations from anyone. I am someone who tries to base her entire relationship with other living beings on this notion, to not expect. But not expecting comes at what cost? Does it mean we should go on doing things for those around us only to be despised, criticized and forgotten for our deeds by them? I mean some of us like me expect nothing in return when they help someone, but then by nothing I mean nothing, not even coldness or sarcasm or taunts. I do not expect a thank you, but then I also do not expect to be given taunts in return for my services. I expect nothing.
However, after contemplating over the last sentence I have written over a couple of months, I have reached an entirely new conclusion, that if you apply in your life, you may get eternal peace. It is that now, when I do something good for someone I am ready for all types of responses from them, positive ones like gratitude, a thank you, a smile, and also the negative ones, like taunts and criticisms, and even ungratefulness. Hrithik Roshan, an actor said in one of his interviews, “You would be shocked by the way people react sometimes. When you have been nice to someone throughout, and helped them throughout, they might at a later stage in your moments of despair come up and say, “Why were you nice to me, did I ask you for it? It was your decision to do things for me, so why expect anything in return?”” That would leave you speechless. Having read that interview, I made up my mind a few months back that from then on, if I did something for someone, I would neither expect anything in return nor be hurt by their reactions.
Another aspect to look at is that there seems to be no limit to someone’s expectations when you do something for them. I hope you have heard the famous fable, Beware the camel in the tent. If you have not, let me reiterate it for you. According to this classic tale, one cold night, a camel asks his master if he can put his head in the tent for warmth. “By all means and welcome,” said the man; and the camel stretches his head into the tent. Soon after, the camel inquires if he may also bring his neck and front legs inside. Again, the master agrees. Finally, the camel asks, “May I not stand wholly within?” With pity, the master beckons him into the warm tent. But when the camel comes forward it becomes clear that the tent is too small for them both. “I think,” the camel said, “that there is not room for both of us here. It will be best for you to stand outside, as you are the smaller; there will then be room enough for me.” And with that, the man is forced outside of his tent. (Story credits: https://www.mawer.com/). A relatable tale, isn’t it? Some humans are a step ahead than the camel in this story. After taking the entire space in your tent, they would be brazen enough to complain that you did not do enough for them. That is to say, people’s expectations have no limits. Hence it is advisable that you put a limit to the amount of good deeds you do for someone. A limit that doesn’t have such a negative repercussion that you get kicked out of your own tent.
Some really philanthropic and mega humans like Ratan Tata or Nelson Mandela were a step ahead. They formed such a huge network of people that they could connect with that their help reaches out to the masses and not only a set of ten or twenty people that they know. Such visionaries know that simply helping their ungrateful friends or relatives won’t help the society so they make the entire world the domain where they help. Now to do so, we must make sure that we are not spending a lot of time on camels who kick us out of our own tents. In order to be helpful to the greatest extent, we ought to devote our time as much as to make ourselves more financially, emotionally powerful as we spend in helping others.
Old adages seem to have a lot more power than we realise. It is important to do the neki (help) and put it in a dariya (a ditch) i.e. do the good deeds and forget about them. I have understood the reasons to do so very well, I hope you do so too.
Now, I do good deeds and try to forget them, and trust me it is one of the best decisions I have made. It has made my life much better than I thought it could.
You may email me at sdshivanidubey@gmail.com.
