SELF-CENTERED EXPECTATIONS

Recently, I read in Eknath Easwaran's Words to Live By, "To live without self-centered expectations is the secret of freedom in personal relationships."

I got stuck at the "self-centered" in "self-centered expectations."

When I first heard of self-centered fear, I despaired...and that was before I even heard its definition, i.e., fear of losing something we have or not getting something we want.

I've come to accept that there is no fear but self-centered fear...a big old 18-wheeler coming right at me is going to cause me fear, and it'll be fear of losing my very life. All the sudden, I understood self-centered fear not as a pejorative, but as a simple description of fear itself.

To my mind "expectations" has a pejorative ring to it. And "self-centered expectations?" Does a double pejorative work the same way as a double negative? Canceling each other out?..am I over-analyzing?

At any rate, I wonder if self-centered expectations aren't like self-centered fear...there's no other kind. And that that is for accepting when (not if) we start running our mind on "what if" and "I hope" or "oh, please." And that would fall under "the human condition."

There's an app for that...we cannot, however, order it through, say, Amazon. It is within, and it is only accessible through still more spiritual growth.

To quote Easwaran again, "It is possible, through the practice of meditation and the other disciplines, to go against these conditioned ways of thinking and actually change ourselves from the inside out."

The starting point is Now...always, ever and forever, consciously bringing our mind back to NOW. There is no "what if" there; there is only here there...but that's getting cutesy, isn't it? Albeit, true.

Thank You.