Unpredictability in Life
[Applause]
good afternoon
thank you for the lovely introduction
i’m from new delhi
and uh it’s all right i mean uh the
place that you call home doesn’t have to
be you know it doesn’t have to be
anything you can call any place
home if you if you be with the right
people if you
do the right things if you do everything
in such a manner that it makes it a home
a very good afternoon
to all of you and i hope that tedx logo
is visible
is it visible to everybody am i the only
one who thought that ted is an actual
person
initially and i used to wonder this
uh minute after minute every day uh
after
uh learning about ted that why is there
an
uh platform named after a person and why
does that person never appear
and everyone else appears on its
platform on his platform
everybody uses ted’s platform except ted
himself or herself
it is only after a little bit of more
research i uh
get i got to know about the about how
beautifully this platform has been
curated
to where technology entertainment and
design converge together
and give birth to innovation and it came
to me so
unexpectedly that it gave me a very very
beautiful insight
into what life might be and since
everybody present over here has been so
generous to present me with their
precious time i would like to share this
inside with you
i would like to conduct a very small
activity i just want
you all to raise your hands i’m going to
give say a statement
and if you fit the criteria raise your
hand all right
raise your hand if you have never
ever fallen ill in your life if you have
never been
injured in your life not even a single
scratch
not even a common cold or cuff
perfect what a unanimous response nobody
has raised their hands
all right a lot of us are college
students over here or have been students
in our past or
probably may pay students in the future
or
raise your hand if you have always
scored what you expected in any sort of
examination
any sort of test paper any sort of
activity that you have taken part in
in the school in the college or
somewhere else
sir i would please please give him a
round of applause he has scored
an expected score in everything that he
has done raise your hand
if you have never been sad if you have
never been angry
even if it was for just a
everybody scored a little less than what
they expected at some point in their
lives
the result is pretty obvious these are
things that we cannot
avoid but we still end up experiencing
nobody wants to fall ill
but we still do nobody wants to fail in
life or score
do perform less than what they want to
but they still do nobody wants to be sad
but we still end up being sad or angry
there is a very very common very very
appreciatable pattern in the three of
the examples that i gave
can anybody help me point that out
we expected in three of the examples
that i just gave we expected but
what we expected did not happen talking
about
expectations expectations have always
been a part and parcel of our life
i guess we expect in every situation
every situation that comes up any event
that happens
we tend to assume the outcome of the
event
but what usually happens is that uh what
most of the time it happens that we what
we assume
and what actually happens do not fall in
line right
so uh coming getting into the world of
digital content creation before
lockdown happened i had a major 1300 to
1400 followers on a
platform called instagram and uh after
uh as our host uh summed it up perfectly
real scheme the format of short video
content sharing platform
and it miraculously uh uplifted my
visibility
throughout the masses and i’m really
grateful to be here today and i hope
that i keep growing
however getting into the world of
digital content creation there are
certain specific problems that
i am pretty sure everybody who is who is
in a similar niche as i am
face on a day-to-day basis one of them
is growth not happening or if it happens
it may stop at any point of time so
there is a constant feeling of
apprehension which surrounds
this whole world of content creation
whether we are able to reach the amount
of people that we expect or not whether
a certain number of people will engage
on the content whether they like it
share it or comment on it or not
whether uh people will follow us or not
i’m pretty sure there have been a lot of
fights regarding instagram uh followers
and
uh everything
i’m pretty sure something of uh related
to followers has
happened in everybody’s life and uh
you know the whole phase where we do not
get
the desired reach the desired engagement
the desired number of followers
it it is popularly called shadow banning
it happens very frequently
with the creators almost all everybody
who’s on instagram
trying to put out content over there and
everybody who’s
working hard striving every day to put
out fresh content
even after so many efforts they face
this situation
i’m pretty sure anybody can guess what
comes after
a brief period of sadness a brief period
of self-doubt probably
frustration also why is my growth not
happening it was happening everything
was
fine a few days ago what happened now
i’m pretty sure that something similar
to this has
happened in everybody’s life right we
expect something to happen
but it does not happen and it ends up
making us sad or angry
what can we conclude from this can we
say that expectations
are the root cause for emotions like
anger
sadness and those surrounding it am i
right
right expectations when not fulfilled
may lead to anger may lead to a brief
period of sadness
because yes we expect the things do not
go our way
we become angry we become sad but at the
same time
now that we have come to this conclusion
that expectations
lead to not being fulfilled they lead to
anger or sadness
so anybody who’s listening to me right
now may think
all right so expectations is the root
cause of why i am sad or why
i i am angry let us let go of all
expectations
problems solved you reckon to hell with
everybody right
i’m sorry to anybody who’s thinking this
way my apologies
i had i hate to break it to you but that
is practically impossible
as you see um expectations as i said
have become
an integral part of our human behavior
of the human thought processes
right and at the same time let’s assume
hypothetically
a person has no expectations there are
zero expectations
that a person has a person does not
expect anything
from anyone or from this world can you
imagine the circumstances in which he or
she may
live in or may thrive in or possibly
survive in
a person who does not expect anything
from anybody
will always be in doubt and a person
who always stays in doubt will have
trust issues right
so can we say can we come to another
conclusion that
expectations a certain amount of
expectations are necessary
because they enable building of trust
right so combining the two conclusions
that we
came to a certain threshold level of
expectations is necessary for building
trust
because without them we cannot survive a
newborn
has to expect his or her mother to feed
it to
uh provided nourishment to provided care
i’m pretty sure a lot of uh people
in the audience over here are college
students and uh we are studying in this
institute
because uh you guys have been funded by
your parents or guardians right
we expect them to we expect them to uh
fund us to provide for our education
provide for our food etc
so expectations a certain threshold of
expectations is probably necessary
beyond that any sort of expectation
which has a highly
likely chance of not being fulfilled may
lead to anger or may lead to sadness
right so if
now that we have figured out that
expectations
are only necessary up to a certain
minimum level beyond that everything can
be discarded
now how do we discard it how do we
discard the extra level of expectations
and keep only the minimum level
necessary
in a giving surround given surrounding
in a given context
it is very simple i want everybody to
ask yourself
a good question a very simple question
what’s next what is going to happen next
can anybody in the audience tell me with
full conviction 100 percent guarantee
that what will happen in their lives two
years from now
or probably two months or probably two
days
or what is going to happen after i
finish blabbering and you guys go out
to have lunch we can say
we can say for we can’t be sure about it
but we still can say
but the point is nothing can be said
with full conviction that yes this is
going to happen
which means life is very very
unpredictable
we do not know what is going to happen
in the course of our lives
i don’t think so i think that there must
be something which can be predicted
right
there must be some event in our lives
throughout the course of our lives some
event which can be predicted
i want you guys to ponder over it
but i guess i have a little shortage of
time so i’ll just
give you the answer one day
everybody’s sitting in this auditorium
including myself everybody sitting
outside or doing whatever outside the
auditorium every human being
on this planet is going to die one day
we all are going to pass away we all
will cease to exist death
death is the only certain event which is
going to happen in our lives
and it is compared where it is
associated with
gloom despair probably devastation
am i right life on the other hand
come it is completely the opposite life
is completely unpredictable the future
can only be relatively predicted but
we cannot say with full conviction what
is going to happen in our lives
yet yet it is associated with so many
happy emotions happiness
joy delight it is only when we are alive
that we can appreciate the beauty of
this world
be it a flower growing on the sidewalk
or the vast
expanse of this cosmos or probably a
world which is beyond
what the eye can see we can’t do that if
you’re dead right
so if life is totally unpredictable and
death is the only predictable thing then
why why do we keep
chasing guarantee security certainty in
life
if there is no guarantee then why is
guarantee
the key to success
study well get in a good school get good
marks get
a good percentage in board exams
as luck and lachanzer did i hope i got
your name right
all right get good marks in 12th class
get a good college get a good college
study
hard again do internships be a part of
societies
be do do a lot of extracurricular get a
good job on well settle down
why why do we have to do this
why do we have to chase guarantee and
security
why do we have to keep spend spend why
do we have to spend
all our lives thinking about what is
going to happen next
when we can’t say for sure what is going
to happen next
lao tzu a very very influential
philosopher
in the sixth between the sixth and the
fourth centuries bce
who existed in ancient china once said
if you are sad or if you’re depressed
then you’re living in the past
if you fear something is going to happen
if you live in a constant state of fear
or
if you’re anxious then probably you’re
living in the future
then what is the best way to stay happy
to stay peaceful to stay calm
it is to live in the present and it’s
correct
it is only in the present where we exist
we don’t exist in the future because it
has not happened
we cease to exist in the past because it
has already happened
where we exist right now is in the
present
it is only the present that uh we have
where we are consciously aware of our
surroundings
and we can exert certain amount of
control over
what is going to happen around us the
more we stay
in the present the more we get connected
to our present
the more distant we become from our past
and from our future
and the more and the lesser uh the more
we stay in our present the lesser we
expect
this is how we reduce the extra amount
of expectations that i talked about
and we maintain the certain threshold of
expectations which are necessary to
thrive
and by letting go of all the
expectations there is completely no
chance of them not being fulfilled
and hence our instances of being
angry or sad reduce immediately
however however however let me tell you
at the same time
i’m not saying that it is guaranteed
that you will never be angry or you nev
or you will never be sad
it is very highly likely that you will
be facing these emotions at multiple
points in the future
but at the same time we in the present
moment we will be able to reduce them
to a great extent which will enable us
to focus
focus on ourselves focus on our work and
focus
on what probably may be next
i guess i will leave everybody over here
with fully flourishing thoughts about
the unpredictability of life
that is my time thank you so much
[Applause]