Expecting in return!

"Nitin, you expect too much from people. Either stop giving them your all or don't expect anything in return."

These are the words that a very special person in my life told me. It's nice to have people around you who you know don't lie to you and tell you what is wrong with you as a person. I don't care about everyone's opinion but there are some people close enough to me who I care about and there perspective of me and them pointing out the problems in me makes me a better human being and when she said this I thought I need to give this suggestion some thought.

A friend of mine, who I have done loads for in the past forgot my birthday. She got stuff for my roommate and completely forgot about me and taunted me in way that was not too nice of her (I know you might be thinking this is so petty). I know it is especially from a fellow who talks the big talk as if everything about him is perfect.

I know but I guess to err is to human. So me being me, almost offended by the fact that I have a weakness, set out to find the answer as to how can I overcome this.

I went on quora to see what people think about this and the people had two opinions on this issue. One was that, you are human and if you are expecting something in return for doing something for someone, what's the harm. The second group said that if you expect things in return you are an egoistic and a narcissistic fool.

Well, while I feel that it is OK to expect things in return from people, but what this does is that it takes the control away from you. You tend to start depending on others for happiness. If you are squeezing an orange, you will get orange juice out of it, right. If you try to save a snake, it won't care because it is snake and it will bite. So the jist of the matter is accept everyone the way they are and don't hope that they will return the favor because more often then not they won't.

The key to a happy life is either stop doing things for others or if we end up doing things, we should stop expecting...!!!