Harmony can hardly be arrived at when we have constant internal turmoils stemming from grudges borne over something.

A whole lot of times grudges stem from expectations placed on someone and when it’s not met, we become resentful and store that in a corner of our minds and hearts. Even when we say that we’ve forgiven the person, we keep a long list of records of all the shortfalls.

If we minimized our expectations from others to almost nothing, that way we leave room for pleasant surprises and also save ourselves that feeling of being let down.

An instance is our personal relationships. A lot of relationships fail because we go into it with a long list of dos, don’ts and infernal expectations.

They are not GOD, but fallible humans!

This virtually applies to everything that we do. For instance you might have a nasty boss. Zero your mind down to the fact that he/she has issues that they are dealing with and they possibly don’t know how to be different.

Once your mind has accepted their contrary prickly nature, you go about your business as effectively as you can without letting the acid of annoyance and grudge build up inside you. Getting into differences with such people will only hurt you more, because the likelihood is that they may not understand, don’t care or are insensitive to your feelings.

Remember that you cannot change other people, but you can change yourself. Who knows, your balanced sense of self and disposition might actually serve as a source of inspiration for such people.

© Jacqueline Oby-Ikocha