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         In English, there is a famous maxim - “To err is human”. For those who didn’t get it, let me help you out and expound its true meaning. It means, as a human being we all are bound to commit mistakes. In fact, in today’s world, we are so much habituated to do them that we never realize when was the last time we missed doing any such faux pas. Maybe, we are born just to commit them as long as we are going to breathe. For me, the real dilemma had been - Whether life is full of mistakes that we commit without regretting OR committing mistakes and subsequently learning through them is a real life. Today also, whenever such quandary confronts me and tries to persuade me to go for the former one (without thinking too much about the consequences), even when my mind starts vacillating like a pendulum to choose one of them, my intuition always convinces me why the latter option is still viable and far better than the 1st one.

Committing sins, however, is just one side of a coin. If you are eager enough to see the other side, just flip a coin. You will find that this other side that I am going to talk about is as disgusting as the first one; it is as cryptic as the first one. However, if you ask me to choose the side which is more dangerous and the side which I want to be quite distant from, I may prefer this deadly one over the side of committing mistakes. Yes, I am talking about “Over-Anticipation” – A very strong and mighty opponent of all types of pleasures of this very world.

I know, the above statement sounds quite insane to normal ears and how on holy earth, it is more detrimental than committing mistakes. But, if you ask me, the only possible way in which I can explain it is by enlightening you through my past experience which has actually turned me into one of those guys who think anticipation, or to be precise, over-anticipation is still more harmful than committing blunders. However, the list of such instances of my past is long enough to let you know. So, I will try to keep things as generic as possible and definitely try to be concise and to the point.

Each day, since morning, we start anticipating good things to come over and gratify us. However, as the time rolls by, we do realize that, yes, though few things actually have come to knock at our door, they are not as beautiful as we have anticipated so; they are not as extraordinary as we have imagined so. As a human being, just like committing mistakes, it’s quite natural and obvious to anticipate about things or persons. In fact, it’s not bad at all. However, the real problem arises when this anticipation turns into 0ver-anticipation – A very first step towards getting complacent. And when this over-anticipation turns out to be ugly or not equal to our expectation, it really breaks our heart. It really deteriorates us from top to bottom. Sometimes, in fact, the situation can get even worse when it throws us into the mud of depression. And, no one on this very planet can possibly guarantee whether one day we will come out of the woods or not. But then, does that mean we should give up on anticipating? Does that mean we should abandon a well-served God-given ability to anticipate favourable outcomes from things we are excited about, from things we care about and from things we look forward to encountering in our day to day life? 

As far as I am concerned, we shouldn’t. Then, in that case, you must be thinking what should be done not to get fettered by over-anticipation. The solution is quite simple – “Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched”. What I mean to say is - Try to keep things as normal as possible and not to start celebrating till the real triumph is achieved.

However, the solution may seem very simple, but it highly requires us to be very patient and not to get carried away with expectations. As I said, the solution is quite simple - We just need to keep a sizable gap between anticipation and over-anticipation; we just need to draw a boundary between satisfaction and complacency, so that they don’t get entangled with each other ever. And by that, I definitely mean, we just need to nurture the very God-given ability of anticipation in a more feasible way. 

Note: In ancient mythology, it is said that if one has committed a sin in the past which is slightly pardonable and still one feels terribly guilty about it, then that very person can be easily separated from the remorse through the act of atonement. However, it is also true that the kind of atonement that needs to be done actually depends on the gravity of the sin that one commits. 

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