What are your expectations from your friends? I can imagine you sitting back and trying to figure that out… different expectations from different friends, right?

When I was younger, I too had a very strong feeling of both sharing (giving out) as well as expectations (getting in return). The word friendship had a very strong meaning associated with it, and certainly had a number of expectations associated with it too, from simple things like expecting friends to remember one’s birthday, to expecting them to be there for you when you need support or help. However, expectations soon get in the way of the friendship. Expectations start acting as guidelines being laid out for a healthy friendship, which most certainly land up turning into rules and regulations. And although there might be very valid reasons for sometimes not being able to stick to the guidelines, those instances are met with prosecution as being violations of the rules and regulations. When that happens, the friendship comes crumbling down. The very guidelines become the reasons for deterioration of the friendship.

Friendship is just one example of this situation. This could be applied to any form of relationship, from family members to colleagues to business contacts.

I’m sure you would be able to match these situations to your own life too. And when such things happen, you try to learn from them, and start with new relationships or revive the same relationships, but this time with a different set of guidelines that are “refined” based on the lessons learnt from the earlier experience. Going down the road, you once again encounter a situation similar to the earlier one, learn more from it, refine the guidelines further, and start again.

Over the years I changed my definition of friendship many times, redefined expectations countless number of times, and one fine day I came to a conclusion that friendship is dangerous. Now before you oppose that, let me explain. It is not that I do not have people around me who I can enjoy life with, it is not that I do not do good to people anymore, and it is not that I do not get support and help when I’m in need. I do have friends, if that’s what you’d like to label them. However, I stay one step away from defining my relationships, and two steps away from setting any expectations. I live a life of expectancy. What’s the difference between expectation and expectancy then?

I’ve come up with a simple depiction of a typical lifecycle of a relationship:

1) Initiation
2) Expectancy
3) Enjoyment
4) Expectation
5) Resentment
6) Termination, or back to 4.

Try to recollect a wonderful relationship in your life. It started with the two of you getting to know each other. That was initiation. You were all excited about the new found friendship, and there was expectancy. Neither of you knew what to expect from the other, there was just expectancy – an exciting feeling that something good is going to come out of the relationship, an eagerness to experience the goodness that the upcoming moments seemed to hold. Expectancy is the core of a relationship, there is nothing concrete there to expect from each other and yet all good that comes out of it brings immense happiness and counts as memories to cherish for a lifetime. That’s when there is so much joy in the relationship, there is so much enjoyment. Then, things start taking a different turn. The comfort zone increases, you tend to assume that you know the other person well enough, and then try to secure the relationship that has come this far, by setting up some expectations – some set of guidelines that you think will help make the relationship stronger. However, what is usually not given consideration in a relationship, of whatever nature it may be, is the fact that each person lives a different life, has different needs and priorities, and has different expectations too! And any relationship that is based on expectations is bound to fail. Expectations cannot be met always, and every time an expectation is not met, it is bound to bring about resentment and unhappiness. The human mind has a keen sense of remembering resentments and piling them up. When resentments finally get on to your nerves, you take the approach of redefining your expectations, mostly reducing them, and at the same time associating the act with an impression that the relationship has deteriorated a little. The cycle of redefining relationships and facing resentment yet again continues until you reach a point when you can no longer take it. You assume that the relationship had deteriorated below all expectations, and finally decide to call it off.

Now consider the following depiction of what I consider an ideal lifecycle of a relationship:

1) Initiation
2) Expectancy
3) Enjoyment
4) Cherishing, and back to 2.

As you can see, there is no room for expectations. Consequently, there is no room for resentment either. There is just the joy you can cherish from the enjoyment that comes from such a relationship. I said above, that friendship is dangerous. The reason for that is that the moment you label relationships, especially with “friendship”, the whole package of expectations that are associated with the label get associated with the relationship. And the moment expectation makes its way into a relationship, the relationship takes the typical lifecycle discussed earlier, which would eventually lead to termination.

This secret holds true not only for relationships. You could potentially apply it to even broader areas of your life. Live a life of expectancy instead of expectations, and see magic happening wherever you go.