High expectations are something which all of us have from our parents, friends, basically, from our near and dear ones, and when those expectations are not met, we are left heart broken. These expectations become worse when combined with a lot of overthinking.

This is not a depressing write-up but sort of an eye-opening post to understand how much importance should be given to your mind’s unnecessary evaluations and what expectations you should have from the people around you and most importantly from YOU! It’s not a solid formula but when we put it across logically in words, it helps us think it through. It helped me and still helps me.

I have also been struggling with this, and more intensely after the wave of covid cases started. I had nothing to do sitting at home for months, worried about when life will be back to routine, worried about the well-being of my parents, worried about my career and that’s when daily conversation exchange with my friends started and also along with that started the overthinking, constant evaluations and self- doubt at a much greater extent. 

I was also worried for myself and my family's health as were all of you too. Eventually, I realized the real importance of love and affection for all the people around us is to let go of the fights and anger, spread love and this realization was because of the horrifying situation we were going through. Hence, I began to initiate conversations with people around me, even with those who did not bother to respond with exactly the same energy which I brought to the table. In short, I was nice to everyone irrespective of their responses.

Also for the past few months, as I said I started giving too much importance to people around me by checking up on my friends just to make sure if they have anything they would want to share with me about their problems and if I could help them in any way. But one of the main reasons I started doing this was my self-realization that I would really appreciate if someone checks upon me. I have my share of close friends to talk to when I need to, but I started evaluating would people do the same for me? Would they check upon me? I used to constantly feel bad for things people didn’t do for me. My mind used to and to a lesser extent still does keep a list of people and things which they didn’t do for me which hurt me. This is precisely what overthinking does to us. Many of my friendships also broke up because of my frequent evaluations of whether they really are my friends or not.

Perhaps I realized this sort of evaluation doesn’t do good to anyone. I got confused with how I am supposed to feel or react. Basically, there are two sides to this. One – there are people who are really close to you, care for you, but due to their own problems, they miss out. All of us are struggling with our own issues and figuring out how to love ourselves and that does not mean we are being less of a friend to someone. Expectations do hurt but that doesn’t mean you start evaluating your friendships and that is what I was doing. I realized even if your closed ones don’t check up on you daily, it does not mean that they won’t be there for you when you need them.

And secondly- there are people who have their share of closed ones and who slyly don’t consider you one of them, regardless of that there should be no loss to you because at the end it has to be a give and take. 

You can’t be good with someone who constantly does not value you or treat you nice, you can only spread love to those who really value your love and reciprocate, or else you are indirectly harming yourself. All of us however we may pretend and say but we cannot be "Too nice" with someone for too long, there's always a limit beyond which it gets to you if you don't get the same energy from the other person. I am not telling you to hate people but to stop giving unnecessary crowns to people who don't deserve that place in your life. That is exactly how I concluded with these troubling thoughts and made myself a big-time priority!

Overthinking can be both good and bad for us. Good because we understand most of the things more clearly than others as we have spent hours thinking over it. Bad because we waste our time thinking a lot of unnecessary shit which consumes most of our energy and this is where the problem lies. Escaping from this has always been a task for me as well and I am still figuring it out. I tend to stress over minute details of everything which comes across my day. Apparently, I haven’t found any proven solution to overcome this continuous need of overthinking literally everything. We tend to constantly picturize ourselves from what people will think and perceive from us. You can’t make everyone happy and at the same time. I guess we have to live through it. Day by day, one thing at a time, we should resolve the mess that has been creating stress for us.

So then, I started overthinking on "What I love", "What I enjoy doing" and did only what makes me happy. You might not know what you really love doing initially but you can figure it out. It can be as simple as sleeping, cooking, singing, exercising, cycling, going for a walk, listening to songs, etc. There’s always something which instantly disconnects you from all of the stuff which is happening in your life, like a mini break to rise even stronger. Mine is dancing apparently. I am not a professional dancer, I just dance for fun alone in my room and those hours are my happiest hours. After a sorrow filled crying session, I lean into a fun dancing session, these series of events might be amusing to think about but I don’t dance because of pain but to soothe it. All the stress and problems are put on hold for that time period. Only one way to escape all the overthinking, hurt, and stress for some time is to get a hobby and zone out. There should be one fun activity like this which will energize you and make you ready to face your problems with a refreshed mindset.

I’m writing this because somewhere I felt that this should be out there and that it’s okay to not have someone to talk to when you seriously need to. You must be the only person you need. You should be “self–sufficient” to you! Having friends is a cherry on top but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a dessert all by yourself. Spending time with friends and family does make you happy. I’m not at all denying that, but expectations from your close ones asking you “Are you okay” is foolish. Making sure you are okay is important. You should learn to be your own therapist! Most importantly, the only expectations to have should be from you and not from anyone else.

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