We Know What We Will Get - We See The Future.

During a class of solid state physics as all the students were eager to know the grades and marks for the test, professor casually said 'you all know what you will get, on the bell curve you already know where you will be.' Since then I started thinking that generally everyone knows what marks they are going to get, you already know it .... If you are going to fail or pass, or get a certain grade. That was so true. Then why are we so anxious to find out the obvious? We as humans somehow want to change the inevitable. We clutch to a 'hope' that may be something unexpected may happen or dread that depending on what you expect, but most of the times the same boring thing happens that you get what you already expected. So by some means you can say we all can see the future barring a few surprises.

In regular life you can easily predict your life. But still we spend a lot of anxious moments before every revelation of a decision because we give too much importance to the fringe events which has a rare chance of happening. We are anxious because we are in one of the following situations -

1. We know the result but we want it so bad that we are stressing out to know if it is what it should and would be. This is being a little too negative in life.
2. We know the result but we don't want it to happen and we are hoping for a miracle to save us. It's already happened but we don't want to face it now. This is dreading the consequence of stuff already beyond our control.
3. We don't know the result at all, we are totally clueless on what is the outcome of our actions. This is a state where we are totally confused about life and don't want to face life at all.

Take any thing from 'going to get a traffic ticket', 'getting review from your manager', 'going to get a visa', 'going to a show / pick up of kid / important meeting and running late', take anything and we kind of know what is going to happen but we are stressing out either about the impending result which we know or some low probability which may happen.

If we take this to an extreme and everyday is filled with many stress pockets and all hit the roof before the inevitable 'revelation of a result' if we can tell ourselves to relax and make us see the inevitable future, it relaxes you and prepares you better for further actions.

My point is - think in every stressful situation do I really know what is going to happen? Maybe I just don't want to admit it? The needless stress will drop it's pretense and it will better prepare you to face the inevitable. Also it will help not focusing on the result so much as the journey itself.

You Crave What You Have

When in Kindergarten kid draws something and parents say 'this is the best drawing they have seen' and the kid starts loving to draw. The more you get better at it, and the more you get noticed the more you feel good about it. You are good at it and you are obsessed with it. You want more? Does it start here? Don't know.

Contrary to expectations you are most insecure and most obsessed about something you have in abundance. If you are a good cook you crave it more and more, you want to cook and get people to praise it more. If you are a Sachin Tendulkar you have all the records but you still obsess to get one more to the kitty because... you already have so many?!. Their is never a point when you say - I already have this and be ok with it. The feeling becomes an addiction and this takes over. So for a human when he doesn't have something then he laments that he is a have-not but when he has something then he not satisfied either and is obsessed with that attribute because of the inherent insecurity.

If you are rich then you think money is more important than others think of it. You somehow need more of it to survive. Rich people tend to think that poor should always be thinking of making money and save and often label them irresponsible in case they find them spending it or just having fun rather than always pursuing 'money making', because in their mind the poor people should need it more.

We also tend to give more importance to our achievements than others care to. If you got into a prestigious university or passed a much coveted exam then you make it a bigger deal of it than it is. You buy into slogans like ... the entire country wanted to do this but only chosen few did it. Really the entire country barely knows about that achievement and is not after it at all due to their own compulsions of life. Same with education, job, career, etc.

There is another side to it, if the achievement has fallen in your lap with no input of your own, then it somehow becomes even more coveted. If you live in a big city like New York or Mumbai .... you obsess about what you got, then you suddenly are in spotlight of representing that big city as if everything about it was made by you. Same with getting born in a culture or caste or class. Same with religion, region, and country. None of it is your making or choice but now that it fell in your lap it is so much more important.

 

All this may seem to be positive but somehow it all flows out as a negative trait more than positive.