Expectation

Ever wonder why expectations are so hard to get rid of? Ever wonder why us human beings always expect something in return and why would we have to be burdened by tonnes and tonnes of expectations from someone else?

When we put in effort cramming all the knowledge into our brain, we expect to get good results. When we work extra harder at work we expect a raise of the salary. When we give in our love, we expect it to be reciprocated. Not to forget, when our parents forking out money for our education, regardless of the amount, they expect us to get good results and become a better person.

When we are stressing out and musing that study life is so stressful and hard, that we wanna just go out and work and just "screw" it up, our parents at the same time are thinking about the same thing, just in a different point of view.

After all these years of hard work, and after all these years of living thriftily, they have finally saved up enough amount of money for their children, for their well-beings, for their education, and some even for their future. They sacrificed their youth, their chances of having a luxurious life, in short their entire life not for anything, but their kids.

Come to think of it, sometimes i would ask my mum
"is it really worth it that you invest so much money on me so that i can study in australia? it's almost half a million or might be more and with that amount of money, you can do whatever you want. Now in order to afford my tuition fee and my effing expensive living expenses, you have to think twice for every penny spent." With that being said, i really don't mind just getting my degree done in Malaysia.

"It's not important whether it's worth it or not.The reason why we are doing this is because of the responsibility, the responsibility of giving birth to you, and to raise you up and to make sure you are able to sustain your life in the future." My mum said that to me and to be honest my tears welled up in no time.

My parents have never been putting any pressure on me regarding my studies and my results. and i don't think they ever expect me to be a genius or someone with excellent results, they never compared me to my friends that they don't care how much better my friends scored than me. But do they really not expect me to be somone great, to be a son that they can actually be proud of? They don't say it out at least. But that doesn't mean they don't expect something from me. The bottom line is as long as i am just being myself and not pushing myself too hard, they will be happy about it.

My maternal grandma expects my uncles and aunties to take care of them, but at the same time, she is still taking care of my uncle instead who is still not able to take care of her totally. My paternal grandma on the other hand is happy and satisfied of being taken care by her children after so much effort of raising them up. Every parents expect their children to take care of them. They spend their whole life raising them up, take care of them, spend eveyr penny of them hoping that their kids will eventually take care of them.

Whereas my mum once said to me
"i don't really expect you guys to take care of me. That's why i am saving up for myself for future use. I am not being cynical or trying to sound pessimistic, but yeh, we do all that for you due to responsibility. To or not to take care of me in the future has nothing to do with how much i have done to you, but it depends on how much you want to take care of me and it shouldn't be a burden at all. It's not your responsibily to take care of me bcause you will have your children to deal with."

Again, my mum has never failed to amaze me with her thinkings. It's true, but that's a kind of expectation as well. My parents don't expect me to take care of them thinking that they have done so much to me, but they EXPECT me to be wanting to take care of them out of my love towards them. and that's exactly how i want it to be. There is nothing more previous than doing things whole-heartedly.

"I want to do everything for my parents because they have done so much for me, spend so much money on me and of course they expect me to take care of them" that's what basically everyone thinks, but let me tell you, it's definitely a wrong thought to begin with in the first place. Because as time goes by, you will realise that i can just pay however much money they have paid back to them. or maybe you will just not care when you have your own family. Or when your responsiblities are getting bigger at times, you will start to get sick of them for being a burden to you.

It's almost impossible to not have expectations. But keep it minimal, and keep it simple. You don't want to ruin something by expecting too much. And most importantly, expect something in a right way, with the right mind and right timing, you will get what you want. However, don't expect someone to love you if you don't confide in in the first place.

p/s: The pictures were taken on the way back from blue mountains. like mother like daughter, you can always expect the same pose form them. it's my cousin and my aunt.