Expectations

Expectation is a perfectly natural thing. Just as you have certain expectations from those close to you, those same people will inevitably have expectations from you.

You won't have any expectations from the tea vendor sitting two miles away, or from the world's richest man living in Sweden. Why, you ask? Because they mean nothing to you.

Expectations arise when someone becomes something to you, or when you become something to someone. Just as you want your parents to love you every day, to cherish and protect you with affection; they, too, want you to respect them, to shelter them with your trust.

The closer someone is to you, the higher your expectations of them will be. Those who mean nothing to you—your expectations of them will hover at the bottom.

When you return home, you want your person to greet you with a sweet smile and loving words, to bring a glass of cool water to your lips when you're weary, to gently massage your temples when you have a terrible headache... these things you desire.

And your person, too, wants you to be the first to wish them on birthdays or anniversaries, to come home carrying even a wildflower in your hands, to touch their forehead and check their temperature when they have a fever.

These are called expectations, the demands of nature.
Expectation and love—these two are opposite sides of the same thread. Where there is love, there must be expectation. Where there is no relationship or love, there will be no trace of expectation. This is the rule, this is natural.

After being intimate with your partner, you both expect to lie quietly embraced against each other's chest—but after receiving the same intimacy from a call girl, once money changes hands, there's no such expectation from her. The difference lies here.

One is your beloved, therefore surrounded by expectations; the other means nothing to you, so there you remain expectation-free.

If someone ever says, "I have no expectations from you," or "Don't have any expectations from me," it means they never consider you close to them at all. You mean nothing to them, and they mean nothing to you.

Here lies the calculation, the mercury's variation—just like the difference in your feelings about some unknown peddler a mile away from your neighborhood, or that night fairy available for money.

Learn to understand who means what to you, or whether they mean anything to you at all.

Stop writing poetry, spending your intellect and time on someone who doesn't even think it necessary to touch your forehead and check for fever.

Let everything run on parallel lines in calculated measure; you'll see, one day everything falls into place.

Let things go as they will,
whoever thinks you're worthless—
may fire burn even in their chaff.