Al-Eye, a
friend of mine, (I call her Al-Eye because I think her eyes resemble almonds)
told me how one day she accidentally drank white rum. She was thirsty. And when
she saw a bottle on a table she drank from it expecting it to be water. It was
actually white rum and since she had a bad cold that day
she couldn't even sniff the difference to begin with. Only when she
had taken some of the alcohol in, she realized something was wrong. She said
she hated the taste. Later when I asked her to try the same white rum mixed
with a soft drink, she thought it tasted better.
Allegorically
speaking the same thing happened to me when I was a lot younger. My soul was
thirsty and I ended up drinking love assuming it to be life. As I said I was
young at that time and hence ignorance was my guiding angel. I chose love with
steep expectations because, by the look of it, it resembled life.
Love,
back then, seemed too harsh a drink for my emotional taste buds. And because
I didn't find life in the love I drank, I started hating love. But
when I grew up and drank the same love after allowing reality to dilute the
element of expectation in it a little, it seemed not that bad after all.
Something manageable it was. I realized our baseless expectations play a
manipulative role in shaping up our perception of things we value. And thereby
make us a prisoner of those perceptions forever.
.
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